This column noted last week ASIC's changes to its regulation of credit rating agencies in Australia and observed that the changes appeared largely benign with one exception - an apparently major exception.On Wednesday, Standard & Poor's (and, reportedly, Moody's Investor Service too) announced that it was not prepared to accept all the changes. It will withdraw its application for a retail Australian Financial Services Licence. The granting of such a licence would require a ratings agency to join an approved external dispute resolution scheme, such as the Financial Ombudsman Service.S&P announced its decision via a media release in which the Australian managing director, John Bailey, argued, for the most part, that membership of such a scheme would interfere with analytical independence and undermine the global consistency and comparability of ratings. This is a good argument and one that we have made before too, but not in this context. The argument was made in relation to ASIC proposals, released in early October 2009, that were to require the ratings agencies to appoint independent external directors to their local boards and ratify, for use locally, credit ratings assigned in offshore offices. Such a move could result in the effective creation of a national rating scale - something that should be avoided.These earlier proposals are still under consideration by the European Commission, so to make the argument now about the need to maintain consistency and comparability seems premature and overstates the potential impact of this comparatively minor requirement. Rather, the underlying rationale for avoiding joining any dispute resolution scheme appears to be to avoid acknowledging that any dispute could arise, in the first place.After all, how can there be a dispute when a credit rating is only an opinion on the credit quality of the rated entity. The opinion is reached based on the information available at the time.Moreover, the rating can and will change, if new information subsequently becomes available that necessitates such action. Credit ratings agencies do this all the time.While an issuer or security issue may have a certain rating at the time of a security issue taking place, there is no guarantee that the rating (or ratings) will apply by the time the security reaches maturity. Indeed, rating agencies are obliged to change credit ratings as soon as their opinion changes. There cannot be a dispute over an opinion - there can only be a difference of opinion. And if an investor has a different opinion, they should not buy the security concerned.The ratings agencies have chosen to take a stand on principle over this issue. Whether it ultimately works for them remains to be seen.