McGraw-Hill Cos. accused the U.S. Justice Department of failing to disclose in court its collaboration with 17 states suing its Standard & Poor’s unit over alleged consumer-protection and unfair-trade violations, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. McGraw-Hill raised the issue in a letter to a federal judge in Connecticut as it fought to consolidate the state lawsuits in U.S. court while the Justice Department pushes to keep the cases under state jurisdiction. The New York-based company has filed papers in several federal courts seeking to move the cases. The Justice Department and state attorneys general sued S&P in February. The U.S. accused the company of falsely representing that its ratings were objective and independent, claiming Standard & Poor's weakened ratings criteria to maintain and increase market share.
