Securities Litigation

Manhattan federal Judge Richard Berman yesterday (August 12) issued a preliminary injunction halting the SEC's administrative action against former S&P executive Barbara Duka, holding the SEC's in-house courts were "likely unconstitutional" based on the way the SEC selects its administrative judges. Earlier this summer, Atlanta federal Judge Leigh Martin May enjoined an SEC administrative insider-trading action against developer Charles Hill for the same reasons. A month later, May enjoined a second SEC action against Atlanta investment-advisory firm Gray Financial ...

On February 3, the Department of Justice and 19 State Attorneys General announced their $1.375 Billion settlement of DOJ's FIRREA suit and related State AG actions against Standard & Poor's and its parent McGraw-Hill Companies over ratings practices in CDO and RMBS securities contributing to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The companies entered a separate $125M settlement with Calpers, California's public retirement system. S&P will pay half the $1.375 Bn to DOJ (as a FIRREA "civil monetary penalty"), and the other half among the various State AG plaintiffs ($25M to Tennessee ...

The SEC and the Attorneys General of New York and Massachusetts this week fined Standard & Poor's almost $77 million, suspended S&P from conduit-fusion CMBS ratings work for a year and imposed other undertakings, for violations from 2010-2014. The SEC announced three settled administrative proceedings against the firm. The first settled charges that during 2010-2011 S&P changed the way it analyzed debt-service coverage ratios in a way that lessened credit-enhancement requirements in conduit-fusion commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) issues. The SEC also found S&P ...