Burning Down the House of S. & P. : The New Yorker

For another recent case study in how to inadvertently increase business transparency via email, see E-Mails Imply JPMorgan Knew Some Mortgage Deals Were Bad (NYT)

"McGraw-Hill did this fully aware that, in handing over some twenty million pages of e-mails to government prosecutors, it presented them with some pretty damaging stuff, including a number of messages in which S. & P. employees criticize the firm’s rating process and seemingly acknowledge that it issued generous ratings to please its customers—the Wall Street banks that issued subprime bonds—and avoid losing market share to rivals Moody’s and Fitch. In one instant message, turned over by the company and included in the government’s complaint, an S. & P. analyst says the firm would have given a good rating to a deal put together by cows."

Burning Down the House of S. & P. : The New Yorker