SEC to sue S&P?
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sp-sec-20110926,0,5143697.story
This is interesting. Few of us have much sympathy for the credit rating agencies following the banking crisis. How they continued to give sub prime debt a AAA rating will forever remain a mystery, but are they legally liable for their appalling misjudgement?
In the commercial world, credit agencies such as Experian and D&B make it very clear that they are simply expressing an opinion and are naturally not responsible for any decision taken on that. Hardly surprising and fair enough too. As I tend to say repeatedly, a credit report is the start of the process, not the end
So surely the same applies to S&P, Moody’s et al? As much as we would probably like to see such a case succeed, I find it hard to believe that they haven’t protected themselves in much the same way