In the following video, John Reeves takes a look at Standard & Poor's, a subsidiary of The McGraw Hill Companies (SPGI 0.58%), and the legal case currently being brought against it by the Justice Department. The company is being accused of knowingly and willingly defrauding investors, and a key part of the prosecution's case will be proving S&P knew ahead of time that the credit ratings it assigned to numerous mortgage-backed securities were inaccurate. John examines the paradox between S&P attempting to show that it had no way of knowing what the actual credit ratings should have been when in fact its business is exactly that -- and it is paid quite a lot of money to do so.