SEC report cites flaws at credit rating agencies

U.S. securities regulators say their first annual review of the nation’s credit rating agencies finds the companies aren’t doing enough to protect their own financial integrity.

The Securities and Exchange Commission report released Friday was mandated by the sweeping financial industry reforms passed last year.

Regulators examined 10 credit rating agencies, including the three largest: Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch.

The report chastised the 10 agencies for a series of problems, including inadequate controls over employee conflicts of interest. Regulators also found the companies sometimes didn’t follow their own procedures.

AT&T wants Sprint ejected from T-Mobile discussion

AT&T Inc. on Friday asked a court to eject rival Sprint Nextel Corp. from the process that looks at whether AT&T should be allowed to buy T-Mobile USA.

Sprint, the nation’s third-largest cellphone company, and a smaller phone company, C Spire Wireless (known as Cellular South until last Monday), want to be parallel participants in the Justice Department’s suit against AT&T’s acquisition on antitrust grounds.

AT&T filed a motion Friday to have the complaints by the two phone companies dismissed, saying Sprint and C Spire are speaking in their own interests, not the public’s.

Sprint said AT&T’s motion is without merit.

Surprise EU inflation leap threatens interest-rate cut

Inflation jumped to a startling 3.0 percent in September in the 17 countries that use the euro, a surprise increase that makes it less likely the European Central Bank will cut interest rates next week to head off a possible recession.

The rate reported Friday from the European Union’s statistics agency was the highest since October 2008 and represented a big increase from August’s 2.5 percent. The scale of the rise was unexpected.

The ECB, the chief monetary authority for the euro countries, has come under pressure to cut interest rates soon to ward off mounting signs of recession in the eurozone economy, which is slowing because of a waning global recovery and ongoing concerns surrounding Europe’s debt crisis.

Report: Mark Cuban has no beef with SEC lawyers

A watchdog report says Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has no grounds to claim that Securities and Exchange Commission attorneys engaged in misconduct in an insider trading case against him.

The SEC’s inspector general’s office says in a report issued Friday there wasn’t enough evidence to support Cuban’s claims. They include allegations that agency attorneys notified him of possible civil charges before their investigation was complete.

The SEC filed charges against him in November 2008, accusing him of avoiding a $750,000 loss in 2004 by selling shares of Internet search company Mamma.com after receiving confidential information about a private stock offering.