McGraw Hill Financial, the parent company of the Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, could face an enforcement action related to six commercial mortgage-backed securities issued in 2011.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, McGraw Hill said the S.E.C. had sent the company a Wells notice on Tuesday over the S.&P.’s ratings of the securities. Wells notices alert companies to potential enforcement actions and give them time to respond.
The notice does not formally accuse McGraw Hill of wrongdoing. In its filing, the company said the letter provided it with an opportunity to address the S.E.C.’s concerns, and that it had been cooperating with the agency.
A spokeswoman for McGraw Hill declined to comment beyond the filing.
The S.E.C. has been looking at McGraw Hill for some time, and reports of a potential investigation surfaced last year.
Credit ratings agencies have come under fire over rosy ratings of mortgage-backed securities. Firms including S.&P. and Moody’s Investors Service were accused of assigning artificially high ratings to companies that had hired them to grade their bonds. When those bonds collapsed, investors lost billions of dollars, and the problems helped contribute to the financial crisis of 2008.
S.&P. is facing a civil lawsuit filed in 2013 by the Justice Department over its ratings of residential mortgage securities. The Justice Department suit accuses S.&P. of lying about its ratings on mortgage bonds and seeks up to $5 billion in damages. A number of states are also suing the credit ratings agency.