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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: flatsville who wrote (3455)	1/27/1999 8:37:00 PM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

Fearing that they might inadvertently cause a flight of capital and destabilize some large developing countries, a group of international banks, securities companies and insurers is weighing a retreat from plans to publicly rate the readiness of more than 30 nations to avoid major Year 2000 computer disruptions ... Global 2000 members said last month that the report should impel countries that had been lagging in Year 2000 efforts to work harder and put pressure on all countries to make more information about their progress public. Year 2000 consultants had called the planned publicity a valuable alert and praised the group as setting an example of cooperative information-sharing for the public good ... Immediately after the announcement, though, critics began suggesting that the financial group's ratings might create more problems than benefits. That set off an internal debate that could be resolved in a private meeting that begins in London today. "I, and a lot of other members, can see both sides of the argument," said James Devlin, the Citibank delegate to Global 2000 who has headed the working group of institutions that developed the rating system and the plans to publish it. Bankers familiar with the debate said that Federal regulators and some major banks had raised concerns about capital flight, especially from Latin America. Some banks questioned whether publicizing the ratings might bog the group down in lawsuits because the United States is the only country with a law protecting those issuing good-faith readiness assessments. And officials in countries with bad ratings might be discouraged from sharing accurate information ... nytimes.com