A credit rating agency has agreed to be barred for 18 months from rating asset-backed and government securities issuers, while a former broker-dealer executive has been charged with duping investors in connection with the sale of MBS. Egan-Jones Ratings Co. and its owner/president, Sean Egan, have agreed to the temporary prohibition as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly “making willful and material misstatements and omissions” while registering with the SEC to become a nationally recognized statistical ratings organization for ABS and government securities. The SEC discovered...