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S&P to pay $1.4bn to regulators in sub-prime debt case | S&P to pay $1.4bn to regulators in sub-prime debt case |
(35 minutes later) | |
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) is to pay a $1.38bn (£934m) settlement to US regulators over allegations it knowingly inflated its ratings of risky mortgage bonds. | |
The deal with the US Justice Department also resolves 19 other lawsuits. | |
It covers mortgage bond ratings between 2004 and 2007. | |
The bonds, which included sub-prime mortgages, were blamed for the collapse of the US property market and subsequent global financial crisis. | |
The US Justice Department filed civil fraud charges against S&P two years ago. | |
It accused the credit rating firm of giving top recommendations - known as triple-A ratings - to mortgage bonds that it knew contained sub-prime mortgage debt and were therefore not as safe an investment as the rating suggested. | |
The US government said that S&P's ratings encouraged financial institutions around the world to buy and sell what proved to be "toxic" financial products in their trillions. | |
It also accused S&P of failing to warn investors that the housing market was collapsing in 2006 because doing so would have hurt its business. | |
At the time, S&P said the US government's case was entirely without factual or legal merit. | |
S&P will pay $687.5m to the Justice Department and a further $678.5m to the 19 states that had brought lawsuits against it. | |
S&P will also pay $125m in a separate settlement with the California Public Employees' Retirement System. |