California Attorney General Kamala Harris today joined the U.S. Justice Department and counterparts from 18 states in announcing a $210 million settlement with Standard & Poor’s to settle federal and state civil claims over S&P’s inflated ratings of residential mortgage- backed securities and structured investment vehicle notes.
Harris said in a statement that — combined with a separate settlement also announced this morning resolving a lawsuit filed by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — S&P will pay a total of $1.5 billion to state and federal government entities.
Through Harris’s office, California will recover $210 million in damages, from which CalPERS and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System will receive allocations for their losses on investments into certain S&P-rated securities, the statement said. Separately, S&P will pay CalPERS $125 million to settle a suit.
Prior to the settlement, an investigation by Harris indicated that S&P systematically misrepresented that its ratings of securities were based on objective and reliable analysis and not influenced by S&P’s economic interests, the statement said.
“California’s public pension funds suffered significant losses due to S&P’s failure to honestly and accurately disclose the risk of the very investments that caused an international recession,” Harris said.
“This settlement holds S&P accountable for financial losses caused by these misrepresentations and compensates our pension funds.”
Harris was scheduled to hold a news conference in downtown Los Angeles late this morning to discuss the “revenge porn” case involving the just- finished cyber exploitation trial in San Diego.
