It is not generally well known that credit rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Moody's rate each other. S&P has only a short-term credit rating of 'A-1' on Moody's, while Moody's has a long- and short-term rating of 'A2/P-1' assigned to S&P's parent, The McGraw-Hill Companies, with a stable outlook. With the Wall St Reform Bill about to be passed into legislation, S&P is so concerned about its implications for rating agencies, it has placed its rating on Moody's on CreditWatch with negative implications.S&P observed that the legislation (as it stands) contains a provision whereby investors may be able to sue rating agencies if they can show that the agency knowingly or recklessly failed to conduct a reasonable investigation of the factual elements relied upon by a credit rating agency's rating methodology, or obtain a reasonable verification of those factual elements from independent third-party sources. While S&P believes it is likely that the new pleading standard will lead to an increase in litigation-related costs at Moody's, whether the new pleading standard would potentially increase the likelihood of successful litigation against Moody's will be determined in the future by the courts.S&P went on to say, if the final legislation removes many or all references to CRAs from federal regulations, it may reduce investor demand for ratings. While it believes the latter change is unlikely to meaningfully impair Moody's business position over the near term, it plans to consider its long-term impact.If S&P has these concerns for Moody's business, it equally must have them for its own. Moody's has not yet moved on its ratings on S&P's parent company.