S&P Wants Government Documents About Investigations of other Credit Raters.

McGraw Hill Financial Inc. (MHFI)’s Standard & Poor’s, preparing its defense to the fraud lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department, will ask the government for information about investigations of other credit raters.


The Justice Department and S&P yesterday filed a joint report ahead of a hearing July 29 in federal court in Santa Ana, California. The report lays out the kind of evidence each side will seek from the other in preparation for a trial of the government’s claims that S&P lied to investors about its ratings being independent and free of conflicts of interest.


S&P wants the government to provide it with documents about its investigation of S&P and others, about the government’s decision to file the lawsuit, and information the government received about residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized-debt obligations in investigations of others, including other credit rating providers.


The parties “anticipate that S&P’s document discovery in these areas will generate objections from the government,” according to the filing.