DBRS Publishes Updated Legal Criteria for Canadian Structured Finance

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today released an updated version of its Legal Criteria for Canadian Structured Finance (the CSF Legal Criteria), which supersedes the version published in September 2012. The CSF Legal Criteria is applied to Canadian structured finance transactions in conjunction with the relevant asset-class methodology. Publication of the updated CSF Legal Criteria is part of DBRS’s ongoing efforts to provide greater transparency to the ratings process by outlining the various factors that DBRS expects to see in transaction documentation, particularly for transactions rated AAA (sf) or R-1 (high) (sf).

The changes made to the updated CSF Legal Criteria are generally editorial in nature, including clarification of certain criteria and the removal of a couple of sections that are more appropriately addressed in other Canadian Structured Finance criteria or methodologies.

DBRS does not view the updates as significant and has determined that the updated CSF Legal Criteria will not result in any impact on existing Canadian structured finance ratings.

If you have any questions regarding the updated CSF Legal Criteria, please feel free to contact Jamie Feehely, Debbie Caruso or Banu Unal.