In June 2004, there was an unwitting but de facto terrorist act against the good corporate governance of the credit rating agencies.

Sir, of course we fully agree with John Gapper in that “Credit rating agencies must beware of the law” February 7. But!

Let us say you had a credit rating agency and which with some mistakes here, and some there, some worse than others, had been able to reasonably prosper over the years. And then suddenly, in June 2004, with Basel II, bank regulators decided that if a security was rated AAA or AA by your company, banks could hold these against only 1.6 percent in capital, meaning banks could leverage their capital with the expected risk-adjusted returns of that instrument an amazing 62.5 times to 1.

Anyone who does not understand what a de facto tsunami sized terrorist act against good corporate governance that meant, does not know what he is talking about, or is just out selling himself on a holier than thou basis.