SEC Rater Report, MF Global Restitution, BofA: Compliance
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Debt raters failed to follow their own methodologies, let senior credit officers view market-share data and allowed a trade group to affect criteria changes, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission report.
The SEC’s Office of Credit Ratings didn’t name specific companies in its fourth annual examination released Dec. 24 in Washington, which looked at practices in 2013. The report refers to the raters as either larger firms, such as Standard & Poor’s, a unit of McGraw Hill Financial Inc., Moody’s Investors Service Inc., a unit of Moody’s Corp., and Fitch Ratings Ltd., or smaller ones, including DBRS Inc. The regulator also didn’t identify firms in prior reports.