Bear Stearns Liquidators Sue Ratings Firms

The liquidators for two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds that collapsed in the early days of the financial crisis accused three major U.S. credit-ratings firms on Monday of fraudulently misleading investors about the quality of their ratings.

The case is yet another battle over blame for the root causes of the crisis, more than five years after Bear Stearns, a once powerful investment bank, collapsed under the weight of mortgage-related debt. The failure of the Bear Stearns hedge funds in 2007 was one of the precursors to the market meltdown.

Monday's filing marked the official complaint for a lawsuit that the liquidators initiated in July.

Geoffrey Varga and Mark Longbottom, the liquidators of the two hedge funds, are seeking more than $1 billion in damages from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, Moody's Investors and Fitch Ratings.

In a 141-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court, the liquidators cited instant-message exchanges and other communications as proof that analysts at the three firms were aware that their ratings did not accurately reflect the risk of the underlying assets.

In one 2007 conversation between two S&P employees, an analyst suggests their company should not be rating a particular investment. "We rate every deal," the other analyst responded, according to the complaint. "It could be structured by cows and we would rate it."

That conversation and several others cited in the complaint were originally unearthed in separate legal inquiries, including a continuing $5 billion civil case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against S&P.

In Monday's filing, the liquidators said the internal conversations were the "razor-sharp tip of an iceberg of evidence" showing that ratings firms were issuing reports they knew were false in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

Spokesmen for S&P, a unit of McGraw Hill Financial Inc., and Fitch, owned by Fimalac SA, said the allegations were "without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously." A spokesman for Moody's said "we believe the complaint is without merit and will seek to have it dismissed at the earliest opportunity."

The liquidators began legal proceedings in July to ensure the case was filed before the six-year statute of limitations for fraud cases in New York state elapsed, according to their lawyer, James McCarroll. Monday's filing was a more detailed complaint.

said Mr. McCarroll, a partner at Reed Smith. "They did this to enrich themselves, without regard to the ultimate devastating harm they knew it was likely to cause to investors worldwide, and thereby to the global economy."

The case is also the latest iteration in the saga of the two Bear Stearns hedge funds. Their failure in 2007 was an important signal that Wall Street was facing an unprecedented crisis. Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, the directors of the funds, were later accused by the U.S. government of securities fraud. Both men were acquitted in 2009.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against the men for allegedly misrepresenting the extent of the funds' investments in subprime mortgages to investors. They settled those charges in June 2012 by paying $1.05 million. Mr. Cioffi was barred from industries regulated by the SEC for three years and Mr. Tannin was barred for two years, according to the settlement.

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