Dubious debt

When Dominion Bond Rating Service rates a piece of debt, the issuer of that debt pays DBRS.
DBRS says it charged the issuers of Asset Backed Commercial Paper up to 125 thousand bucks per debt security. In addition DBRS charges a "maintenance fee" of about 40 thousand. It's been more than a week now that Coventry admitted it was having trouble rolling over new debt. Some of Coventry's ABCPs have pieces of subprime mortgages as their underlying asset. Two hundred thousand Americans defaulted on subprime mortgages last month. Two million subprime defaults are predicted by year-end. No wonder then that prospective buyers of this debt dried up. DBRS says it's now reviewing how it rates these securities and admits late last year it started to question the ratings on ABCPs. Yet the paper issued by Coventry which nobody apparently wants to buy still carries an "R-1" rating. Equivalent to the safety of a T-Bill which is backed by the government.