S&P to pay $1.38bn settlement to U.S. regulatorsFebruary 3, 2015 - 19:19 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) is to pay a $1.38bn settlement to U.S. regulators over allegations it knowingly inflated its ratings of risky mortgage bonds, BBC News reports. The deal with the U.S. Justice Department also resolves 19 other lawsuits. It covers mortgage bond ratings between 2004 and 2007. The bonds, which included sub-prime mortgages, were blamed for the collapse of the U.S. property market and subsequent global financial crisis. The U.S. Justice Department filed civil fraud charges against S&P two years ago. It accused the credit rating firm of giving top recommendations - known as triple-A ratings - to mortgage bonds that it knew contained sub-prime mortgage debt and were therefore not as safe an investment as the rating suggested. The U.S. government said that S&P's ratings encouraged financial institutions around the world to buy and sell what proved to be "toxic" financial products in their trillions. It also accused S&P of failing to warn investors that the housing market was collapsing in 2006 because doing so would have hurt its business. At the time, S&P said the U.S. government's case was entirely without factual or legal merit. S&P will pay $687.5mln to the Justice Department and a further $678.5mln to the 19 states that had brought lawsuits against it. S&P will also pay $125mln in a separate settlement with the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Top stories Yerevan has dismissed Turkey’s demand to shut down the Armenian nuclear power plant as “inappropriate”. Armenia will loan 2.9 billion drams to Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh), according to a draft government decision. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan has “strongly condemned” Armenia’s decision. Kerobyan has said that for the first time in the history of Armenia, the volume of foreign direct investments amounted to about $1 billion. Partner news | Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. |