On January 21, 2015, the SEC suspended Standard & Poor’s Rating Services (S&P) from rating conduit/fusion CMBS for one year as part of a settlement between McGraw-Hill Financial Inc., S&P’s parent company, and the SEC.  The settlement stems from S&P’s disclosures in 2011 that it would utilize a certain methodology to rate six CMBS transactions and provide a preliminary rating for two others, when it actually used a different methodology, forcing S&P to pull a rating on a $1.5 billion bond that same year.  In addition, S&P agreed to retract an allegedly untrue and misleading article that it published in 2012 and settled another claim that it failed to maintain and enforce internal controls regarding changes to its monitoring standards for certain RMBS.  S&P further agreed to parallel settlements with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.  The rating agency has also agreed to pay more than $77 million to settle these claims with the federal and state regulators ($58 million to the SEC and another $19 million to New York and Massachusetts).  SEC Settlement Order 1.  SEC Settlement Order 2.  SEC Settlement Order 3.