Ex-S&P executive goes on trial before SEC over mortgage bond ratings

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday took a former Standard & Poor's executive to trial over claims that she engaged in a fraud that inflated ratings of commercial mortgage-backed securities. At the start of an administrative trial in Manhattan, SEC lawyer Stephen McKenna said Barbara Duka, the former head of S&P's commercial mortgage-backed securities group, failed to disclose to investors a change she made in 2011 in how her team calculated ratings.