...Issuer Ratings: An Issuer Default Rating (IDR) is an assessment of an issuer's relative vulnerability to default on financial obligations, and is intended to be comparable across industry groups and countries. Issuers may often carry both Long-Term and Short-Term IDRs. Because both types of IDRs are based on an issuer's fundamental credit characteristics, a relationship exists between them (see Figure 1 and Appendix Short-Term Ratings Criteria for Non-Financial Corporates). Instrument Ratings: The ratings of individual debt issues incorporate additional information on priority of payment and likely recovery in the event of default. The rating of an individual debt security can be above, below or equal to the IDR, depending on the security's priority among claims, the amount of collateral, and other aspects of the capital structure. Fitch's Criteria Reports Recovery Ratings and Notching Criteria for Non-financial Corporate Issuers and Country-Specific Treatment of Recovery Ratings address...
