The Government contends that Mr. Ferber used his role as adviser to debt issuers to illegally demand and obtain financial benefits for himself and his firm.

Unregulated institutions (such as high-yield debt issuers) would take over the economically necessary role of financial intermediation.

According to Moody's, the default rate, which is a percentage of all debt issuers on a trailing 12-month basis, peaked in January of this year at 10.7 percent.

Thus, one of corporate America's largest debt issuers could soon be selling junk bonds.

Due to the varying size of debt buying organizations, not all organizations have the capital required to purchase large portfolios directly from the debt issuer.

In the presence of interest rate differentials, debt issuers can make arbitrage profits by lending short and borrowing long.

While this has made financing a bit more expensive for debt issuers, bond yields are more attractive to investors.

That would be difficult, given that Italy is the third largest debt issuer in the world.

The rating agencies stress that they analyze debt issuers' financial positions to try to predict for investors an entity's ability to pay off its debt.

Spread Research's business model is centred on providing independent analysis on corporate debt issuers and credit ratings similar to those given by the rating agencies.