Memo: Antitrust: Commission confirms sending of Statement of Objections to Standard & Poor’s

The European Commission has confirmed that on 16 November 2009 it sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to Standard & Poor's (S&P), a division of McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. of the United States. The SO outlines the Commission’s preliminary view that S&P is abusing its dominant position by requiring, as the sole-appointed National Numbering Agency (NNA) for US securities, financial institutions and information service providers (ISPs) to pay licensing fees for the use of International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) in their own databases. The Commission takes the preliminary view that this behaviour amounts to unfair pricing and constitutes an infringement of Article 82 EC Treaty.