(9)Over-reliance on credit ratings should be reduced and all the automatic effects deriving from credit ratings should be gradually eliminated. Credit institutions and investment firms should be encouraged to put in place internal procedures in order to make their own credit risk assessment and should encourage investors to perform a due diligence exercise. Within that framework, this Regulation provides that financial institutions should not solely or mechanistically rely on credit ratings. Therefore, those institutions should avoid entering into contracts where they solely or mechanistically rely on credit ratings and should avoid using them in contracts as the only parameter to assess the creditworthiness of investments or to decide whether to invest or divest.