On July 26, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted final rules removing credit ratings as one of the several alternative “transaction” eligibility criteria for companies seeking to use short-form registration statements when registering primary offerings of non-convertible securities. The new rules were adopted pursuant to Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which required U.S. Federal agencies to remove references to, or requirement of reliance on, credit ratings from their regulations and replace such ratings with a standard of credit-worthiness that the agency deemed appropriate.