WASHINGTON (Reuters) -S&P Global Ratings agreed to pay a $2.5 million penalty to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it violated rules to prevent conflicts of interest, the regulator said in a statement on Monday.
S&P employees ran afoul of rules designed to prevent sales and marketing considerations from influencing credit ratings determinations during a five-day period in August 2017, the SEC said. S&P commercial employees attempted to pressure colleagues responsible for evaluating and assigning a rating to a jumbo residential mortgage-backed security transaction by an issuer in July 2017.
The firm’s commercial employees “became participants in the rating process during a time when they were influenced by sales and marketing considerations,” the regulator said in its statement.
S&P, which did not admit or deny the SEC’s findings, said in a statement that it “remains committed to the integrity of its ratings process, to compliance with its regulatory obligations, and to maintenance of rigorous procedures to protect our high-quality independent credit ratings.”
Ratings agencies, which are registered with SEC, are required to keep all sales and marketing considerations from affecting credit ratings.
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher and Chris Prentice in Washington; editing by Dan Whitcomb and Stephen Coates)