In 2019, the European Commission concluded a contract with the American asset management company BlackRock. The company has been mandated to advise the Commission on prudential risk matters to implement sustainability in the banking regulation ecosystem. This is not the first time that the ECB has been working with BlackRock: in the aftermath of the Eurozone debt crisis, in 2014, the private firm already helped the ECB conduct its comprehensive assessment of the European banking market. Concerns over potential conflicts of interests have been raised regarding the choice of a private company because of the potential influence on the rulemaking of the ECB, as well as on the credibility of BlackRock to perform such a task. The Commission and BlackRock rejected any wrongdoings and respectively invoked independence and transparency.