Though many include the rating agencies among the list of culprits that contributed to the global financial crisis, the rating agencies have up until now largely dodged attempts to hold them liable. While there have been a small number of cases (refer for example here) where courts have denied the motions of rating agencies to dismiss claims that had been filed against them, those few cases have not (or least not yet) resulted in the imposition of liability against the rating agencies.

 

However, in a gargantuan September 5, 2012 opinion that appears to represent the first imposition of liability on a rating agency in a case arising out of the financial crisis,, an Australian Judge that ruled that S&P’s AAA rating of a complex financial instruments was “misleading and deceptive” and “involved negligent misrepresentations” and therefore that S&P was liable to twelve local Australian governments that purchased the investments. The 1,459 page ruling by Federal Court Justice Jayne Jagot can be found here. A November 5, 2012 Bloomberg news article describing the ruling can be found here.

 

The financial instruments in question were structured financial product known as a constant proportion debt obligation (CPDO), which one witness in the case described as “grotesquely complicated” (a description that Judge Jagot affirmed to be  “accurate”). The CPDO structure involved a special purpose vehicle that issued notes allowing investors to invest in the CPDO’s performance. The CPDO was a complex and highly leveraged vehicle that would make or lose money through notional credit default swap (CDS) contracts referencing two CDS indices. (Got that? Good.)

 

The CPDO was created in April 2006 by ABN AMRO, which had determined that in order to obtain a AAA rating, the rating model needed to show a very low likelihood of default (less that 0.728%). ABN AMRO determined what model inputs were needed in order to produce a determination that the instrument’s likelihood of default was within the desired range. According to Judge Jagot’s opinion, ABM AMRO convinced S&P to use the these desired inputs, even though ABN AMRO had reason to know that at least some of the inputs did not correspond to known marketplace conditions. Judge Jagot found that S&P used these inputs even though it could have determined on its own that at least some of the inputs did not correspond to marketplace conditions.

 

Thereafter, ABN AMRO created and sold additional versions of the CDO, including the Rembrandt 2006-2 CPDO and Rembrandt 2006-3 CPDO. S&P gave these later financial instruments the same AAA rating using the same methodology. Judge Jagot found that S&P gave these later offerings the same AAA rating and using the same methodology even though during the period between these two subsequent offerings a number of questions had been asked internally within S&P about the methodology (Internal S&P emails from this time period and cited by Judge Jagot in her opinion contain statements asking whether there was “a crisis in CPDO land” and asking whether the rating agency had been “bulldozed” by ABN AMRO.)

 

In late 2006 and early 2007, the Local Government Financial Services Pty (PGFS), an authorized deposit-taking institution organized by and actin g on behalf of Australian local governments (“councils”), purchased a total of A$40 milli0on of Rembrandt 2006-3 CPDO. Between November 2006 and June 2007, a number of councils in New South Wales purchased a total of A$16 million of these CPDO notes from LGFS, which kept the remainder of notes it had purchased on its own balance sheet.

 

As 2007 progressed, the global financial crisis began to unfold, which, among many other things, caused spreads to widen between the instruments credit default swaps and the referenced CDS indices. As the spreads widened, S&P downgraded the notes and the value of the notes declined substantially. LGFS sold the notes it continued to hold for a principal loss of $16 million. The various local councils cashed out in October 2008, receiving back less than 10% of the capital they had invested.

 

Judge Jagot found that S&P’s AAA rating of the Rembrandt notes was “misleading and deceptive and involved the publication of information or statements false in material particulars and otherwise involved negligent misrepresentations to the class of potential investors in Australia, which included LGFS and the councils.” She also found that ABN AMRO “engaged in conduct that was misleading and deceptive and published information or statements false in material particulars and otherwise involved negligent misrepresentations to LGFS specifically and to the class of potential investors with which ABN AMRO knew LGFS intended to deal.” Judge Jagot also concluded that LGFS has also engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct.”

 

Judge Jagot concluded that ABN AMRO and S&P were equally liable to LGFS for the entity’s losses, although a part of LGFS’s claimed losses were reduced by LGFS’s own conduct. She also concluded that S&P, ABN AMRO and LGFA were each proportionately liable for one third of the councils’ losses. S&P has said publicly that it intends to appeal the ruling.

 

As a decision of an Australian court, the ruling will have no direct legal bearing on the outcome of any of the many cases pending against the rating agencies in the United States. Moreover, Judge Jagot’s ruling is very fact intensive and involves a host of specific factors that uniquely related to the circumstances at issue.

 

Nevertheless, the opinion (though dauntingly long and complicated) is very interesting and it offers a fascinating glimpse of the processes involved in rating at least one of the very complicated financial instruments that caused so many problems during the financial crisis. Judge Jagot’s opinion provides a look behind the scenes that can only be described as disturbing. Of course, S&P disputes her conclusions and intends to appeal her rulings. But Judge Jagot’s painstaking analysis suggests that, here at least, the rating agency was, as one email Judge Jagot  put it, “bulldozed” by the financial firm that created the instrument the rating agency was rating, and did not independently verify the validity of the inputs employed in the rating model it used.  

 

These conclusions are consistent with the allegations that have been raised in the many claims against the rating agencies here in the U.S.  — that the rating agencies were insufficiently independent and used inadequate ratings methodologies in providing the highest investment rating to complex financial instruments in the run up to the financial crisis. The fact that a court expressly found that a rating agency misled investors as a result of which the rating agency must be held liable to the investors has no precedential effect in these other cases. But it could have an effect on the context within which these other courts consider the allegations against the rating agencies. At a minimum, Judge Jagot’s ruling could hearten the claimants in those other cases.

 

Without having read the entirety of Judge Jagot’s nearly 1,500 page opinion, I can’t say for sure whether or not she considered the issue that has proven so critical in so many of the cases here in the U.S. – that is, that the rating agency’s ratings are mere opinions for which the rating agency’s cannot be held liable unless the claimant can show that the rating agency did not in fact actually hold the stated opinions. The absence of this consideration could perhaps explain the difference in outcome between the Australian case and so man of the cases here in the U.S. Many of the cases in the U.S. have ben dismissed on this basis. The Australian case does show what kinds of things might come to light if the cases against the rating agencies are allowed to foreword.

 

ABN AMRO was of course acquired in October 2007 by a consortium of investors led by the Royal Bank of Scotland and that included Fortis, in a transaction that contributed substantially to the near collapse of both RBS and Fortis, both of which subsequently required massive government bailouts. There is a lot of competition among the deals completed in the run up to the financial crisis for the title of worst deal of all time (think, for example of BofA’s acquisition of Countrywide). But there is a good case to be made that the ABN AMRO deal takes the cake. Anybody trying to understand how it all went wrong might want to start by taking a look at the Judge Jagot’s opinion in this case. 

 

Felix Salmon has an absolutely terrific November 5, 2012 article on Reuters about Judge Jagot’s opinion, here. Salmon is lavish in his praise for Jagot and her understanding of the complex financial instrument involved in the case.