The current financial crisis involves a potent witches’ brew of bankruptcies, mortgage bailouts, failed banks, blame assignment, and liquidity issues. Because every one of these ingredients contributes in some important way to the total mix of current woe, this post briefly references each one of these issues and concludes with a video that manages to find
Dismissal Partially Denied in Subprime-Related Rating Agency Shareholder Suit
In the lists of those supposedly responsible for the current financial mess, the rating agencies are among those usually featured prominently. Numerous investors have in fact sued the rating agencies claiming the ratings misled them into making their investment (about which refer, for example, here). Whether these investor actions will succeed remains to be
Subprime Litigation Targets: Rating Agencies, Auditing Firms?
The subprime scapegoating process has resulted in a round up of the usual suspects, including directors and officers of publicly traded companies. But among other targets many aggrieved parties seem particularly keen to blame in the subprime debacle are the rating agencies.
In prior posts (most recently here), I have noted the securities claims
SEC Finds Credit Rating Conflicts and Shortcomings
Those eager to try to hold the credit rating agencies responsible for supposedly enabling the subprime mess will undoubtedly be encouraged by a July 8, 2008 SEC Report identifying rating agency “shortcomings.”
The Report, entitled “Summary Report of Issues Identifies in the Commission Staff’s Examinations of Selected Credit Rating Agencies” (here) reflects
Headline News: Settlements, Lawsuits, Dismissals
About the UnitedHealth Group Class Action Settlement: UnitedHealth Group announced on July 2, 2008 (here) that it reached an agreement to settle its high profile options backdating-related securities class action lawsuit for $895 million. A July 3, 2008 Law.com article discussing the settlement can be found here.
Not only is this
Subprime Investors Sue Rating Agency
As the subprime crisis has unfolded, one of the recurring themes has been the conflicted role of the rating agencies. Last week’s announcement (here) of a negotiated resolution of the New York State regulatory investigation of the rating agencies reflects one aspect of the recurring questions surrounding the rating agencies’ role in the