07/09/2008
SEC issues report on credit rating agencies
By Cydney Posner
In today's NYT, an article reports on the SEC's Summary Report of Issues Identified in the Commission Staff’s Examinations of Select Credit Rating Agencies. The article hits the unseemly highlights, many of which were appalling quotes from employee emails and other communications footnoted in the report. Bottom line: these supposedly objective agencies (which are, in fact, for-profit, and in some cases, publicly held, or subs of publicly held, companies) are rife with conflicts of interest, overburden their staffs and unduly focus on profitability.