The U.S. is withholding documents that might show the government sued Standard & Poor’s for $5 billion in retaliation for downgrading the country’s debt, the ratings company said, asking a court to compel the records’ production, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. A federal judge in April ruled that S&P could seek potential evidence from the Justice Department to mount a retaliation defense to U.S. claims that it gave fraudulent ratings to mortgage-backed securities. Since then the government has turned over documents with redactions ranging from the omission of a single word on a page to multiple pages, S&P said yesterday in court papers. S&P is the only credit rating company sued by the Justice Department over the claim that it gave fraudulent ratings to mortgage-backed securities. The company has said that it was singled out after it downgraded the U.S. debt in August 2011. The Justice Department and ex-U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner denied there’s a connection between the downgrade and the suit. The U.S. may seek as much as $5 billion in civil penalties from S&P.
