Financial Crisis, Mortgage | featured news

Investments that were vulnerable in the last financial crisis and believed to be gone for good have largely escaped new rules that were made to prevent another crisis.

The Justice Department and state prosecutors plan to file civil charges against Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service, accusing the firm of fraudulently rating mortgage bonds that led to the financial crisis, people briefed on the plan said.

Michael Williams, the chief executive of US mortgage giant Fannie Mae, will step down once a successor has been found, the company says. Mr Williams was put in charge of Fannie Mae in 2009 after the firm had been rescued by the US government at the height of the financial crisis.