Moody's Investors Service has announced the departure of its chief compliance officer, Jeffrey Schwartz, who has held the post since 2009. The move is notable, given that Moody's has gone through three compliance officers in less than three years.

The reason behind the musical chairs may have to do with concerns raised by former compliance officer, Scott McCleskey, who held the post from from 2006 to 2008. David Teicher, a managing director in one of the firm's structured finance credit-analysis units, later assumed the compliance post in late 2008.

In a March 2009 letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, McCleskey expressed grave concern with "the lack of meaningful surveillance of municipal securities, contrary to statements by Moody's to the public and to Congress, which imply that all securities are either monitored in a robust fashion or are as 'point in time' ratings." In reality,  McCleskey said during his time as compliance head, "virtually no surveillance was being performed on U.S. public financial ratings."

McCleskey also charged Moody's senior management with ignoring his concerns. "While I was there, I felt that my guidance was routinely ignored, if that guidance meant making less money or emplacing separation requirements to address conflict of interest between the ratings side and the business-development side."

He expressed particular concern that this "failure" in the current economic environment could have "far-reaching" systemic consequences, even causing a repeat of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Janet Holmes, formerly vice president of regulatory affairs, was appointed interim compliance officer in April, according to company documents.