S&P fights lawsuit for alleged inflating of its ratings

NEW YORK: Outgoing president of S&P Douglas Peterson said that as debt markets expand to finance the demand for development and infrastructure projects, S&P and its 1,400 analysts would offer globally comparable measures of relative credit risk.

"I am eager to get started, to work alongside S&P's deeply talented employees and to build on the progress Doug (Peterson) and the management team have achieved," said Neeraj Sahai, who will succeed Peterson.

Sahai will take the reins of ratings major at a time when it is fighting a civil fraud lawsuit filed in February by the Justice Department, which accuses the company of inflating its ratings to get jobs grading subprime mortgage bonds before the financial crisis.

Earlier, for four years, between August 2007 and September 2011, S&P was led by Deven Sharma, who became the public face of ratings major after it downgraded the US of its 'AAA' rating in August 2011. Within three weeks of the downgrade, Jharkhand-born Sharma announced that he would be leaving S&P. Post Sharma's announcement to quit S&P, there were rumours that he was moved out because of his decision to downgrade the US. S&P said the move was pre-announced and there was no relation between Sharma's decision to quit and US downgrade. 

AKANKSHA SHANU

PGDM 1st SEM.