think-tanks such as the world pensions council have argued that european powers such as france and germany pushed dogmatically and naively for the adoption of the basel ii recommendations, adopted in 2005, transposed in european union law through the capital requirements directive (crd). in essence, they forced european banks, and, more importantly, the european central bank itself, to rely more than ever on the standardised assessments of "credit risk" marketed aggressively by two us credit rating agencies—moody's and s&p—thus using public policy and ultimately taxpayers' money to strengthen anti-competitive duopolistic practices akin to exclusive dealing. european governments have abdicated most of their regulatory authority in favour of a non-european, highly deregulated, private cartel.