U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inspectors said a large credit rating firm “appeared to allow” for a pending rating decision to be disclosed to certain people before the action was publicly announced.
The finding, issued in a report today, comes about a month after the agency began a review of whether Standard and Poor’s employees improperly told certain investors about its decision to downgrade U.S. debt before doing so on Aug. 5.
The finding was part of the SEC’s first report of annual inspections of credit-rating firms, mandated by the 2010 Dodd- Frank Act. Carlo di Florio, head of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, declined to identify any of the firms referenced in the report.
