The process has accelerated in recent weeks as the agencies have worked their way through the bonds directly backed by mortgages to bonds backed by other bonds.
Funds and banks around the world have taken hits because they purchased bonds, or risk related to bonds, backed by bad home loans, often bundled into financial instruments called collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.'s.
The agency and its rivals had been accused of helping to set off the crisis by giving their highest ratings to bonds backed by subprime mortgages that ended up suffering huge losses.
The rating agencies in recent years became a target in Washington, as regulators and lawmakers blamed them for feeding the mortgage bubble by awarding top grades to bonds backed by subprime mortgages.
The Dodd-Frank Act cracked down on the credit rating agencies, the firms that awarded rosy ratings to bonds backed by junky mortgages, but some lawmakers and consumer advocates contend that the regulatory overhaul falls short.
Rating agencies were widely criticized for failing to see the dangers in the real estate market and awarding high marks to bonds backed by subprime mortgages.
His team asserts that while Goldman salesmen were peddling investments linked to bonds backed by subprime mortgages, its traders were betting that those securities -- and others like it -- would fail, and that the two teams were in contact.
