Clearly, Standard and Poor's fortunes have been grievously affected by this development. The first ever against a credit rating agency, the major accusation of the lawsuit is that the agency provided inflated ratings on $5 billion worth of mortgage related securities and misled investors. The incentive in this case was hundreds of millions of dollars in ratings fees which were paid by the issuers of these securities. Precisely, S&P assigned these ratings in pursuit of lucrative ratings fees and higher market share. However, according to an analyst at BTIG, LLC, Moody's also faces the risk of similar litigation in the near future. This may also have provided S&P ideas for a "similar announcement" shortly, the analyst opined. Moody's shares had taken a hit right after it was leant that rival S&P had been served a civil lawsuit. Share prices had declined even though Moody's posted a 66% jump in net profit in the last quarter of 2012.