Rating agencies were thrust into the spotlight after the financial crisis, when critics complained that their ratings on mortgage-backed securities were inflated to win business, misleading investors who had relied on them to provide a good guide to the risk of default. In 2015 S&P paid $1.4bn to settle claims over its role in the run-up to the crisis, while Moody’s paid $864m. Yet this did not loosen their stranglehold on the market. “They clearly had a lapse a decade ago with mortgage-backed securities but it was isolated to that part of the bond market and didn’t change how bond managers viewed them,” noted Mr White.

https://www.ft.com/content/cecf5958-8210-11e9-9935-ad75bb96c849