S&P pledges to defend itself against Justice Department lawsuit

Feb 5 (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's pledged to "vigorously defend" itself against a U.S. Department of Justice civil lawsuit in a statement on Tuesday, saying that emails and anecdotes cited by the agency do not prove wrongdoing.

"Although we deeply regret that these 2007 CDO ratings did not perform as expected, 20/20 hindsight is no basis to take legal action against the good-faith opinions of professionals," the McGraw-Hill Cos Inc unit said in an emailed statement. "The fact is that S&P's ratings were based on the same subprime mortgage data available to the rest of the market."

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against S&P late on Monday, accusing the ratings agency of improperly rating mortgage-backed securities for profit.