Standard and Poors is ratings agency first and foremost. Are you really that cretinous?
Financial companies are still paying the price for the crisis of 2009, as Standard & Poor’s showed when it agreed on Wednesday to pay the US government and two states more than $77m to settle charges that it inflated its ratings of mortgage-backed securities.
In its first enforcement action against a major rating agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused S&P of fraudulent misconduct, saying the company loosened standards on its ratings to drum up business in recent years.
The agreement requires S&P to pay more than $58m to the SEC, $12m to New York and $7m to Massachusetts.
As part of its agreement with the SEC, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, a division of McGraw Hill Financial, will take a “timeout” from rating certain types of mortgage-backed securities for a year.
“These settlements involve findings of intentional fraud in 2011 and 2012, well after the financial crisis,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, on a call with reporters. “The financial crisis may be behind us, but these cases are an important reminder that the race-to-the-bottom behavior exists even though the financial crisis has ended.”
S&P said in a statement that it did not admit or deny any of the charges.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ne-banned-rating-mortgage-securities-one-year