Standard & Poor's, a Subsidiary of McGraw Hill, Says DOJ Civil Lawsuit Is Unjustified And Without Legal Merit

"Although we deeply regret that these 2007 CDO ratings did not perform as expected, 20/20 hindsight is no basis to take legal action against the good-faith opinions of professionals. The fact is that S&P's ratings were based on the same subprime mortgage data available to the rest of the market – including U.S. Government officials who in 2007 publicly stated that problems in the subprime market appeared to be contained. Every CDO cited by the DOJ also independently received the same rating from another rating agency.