Memories are short in Washington and even shorter on Wall Street. Temporary becomes permanent, and the petulance and arrogance of the rating agencies is soon forgotten.
I was disturbed to read this weekend in another fine piece by Gretchen Morgenson how yet again the rating agencies (Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s and the like) had obtained another “Get Out of Jail Free Card.” For decades they avoided liability from their negligence (or worse: stark conflicts of interest with issuing banks), by cleverly claiming their grades given to investment securities (AAA and on down) were opinions to be afforded First Amendment
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—as in the United States Constitution—protection. Well, they got away with it until the financial crisis of 2008, when hundreds of billions in mortgage-backed securities with investment-grade ratings were determined to be just about worthless.
Congress responded to this historic immunity nonsense in Dodd-Frank by explicitly requiring that the ratings agencies be subject to expert liability, opening up for the first time liability from investor lawsuits. How did the ratings agencies respond? Like a petulant child by refusing to rate asset-backed securities.
Rescuing the rating agencies from the “time out” they deserved, the SEC gave them a free pass. First temporary, now permanent; a “no action letter” was granted providing agencies with an absolute defense to investor lawsuits. Last week, Martha Coakely, the Massachusetts Attorney General, in a letter to Mary Shapiro, Chairman of the SEC, wants to know, “Why?”
The party-line, spewed by co-author of the legislation, Barney Frank: this is merely a short-term strategy to wean the markets from reliance altogether from the influence of ratings agencies, we’re just not there yet.
Sadly, this won’t work. Memories are short in Washington and even shorter on Wall Street. Temporary becomes permanent, and the petulance and arrogance of the rating agencies is soon forgotten. I hope General Coakley fights hard for answers and doesn’t back down—this no action response of the SEC is unacceptable.