S&P Suspended and Fined $80 Million in SEC, State Mortgage Bond Cases

Standard & Poor’s agreed to be suspended from rating the biggest part of the commercial-mortgage bond market and pay almost $80 million to state and federal authorities over claims it bent criteria to win business.

S&P misled investors about the methodology it used in 2011 to rate eight commercial-mortgage backed securities, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement today. The company will pay about $58 million to the SEC and an additional $19 million to attorneys general for New York and Massachusetts to settle the matter.