Standard & Poors, one of the major credit rating agencies, has done an interesting pivot in defining itself amidst a Justice Department civil suit. Like all the major rating agencies S&P is paid by those whose securities it rates.  This, quite obviously, is a conflict of interest in how it rates securities because if it [...]

The Department of Justice has filed a civil lawsuit against Standard and Poors alleging that S&P engaged in a scheme to defraud investors in structured financial products known as Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs). The lawsuit alleges that investors, many of them federally insured financial institutions, lost billions of dollars on [...]