Commitments and Contingencies

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2014

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments and Contingencies

Commitments and Contingencies

Rental Expense and Lease Obligations

In December of 2003, we sold our 45% equity investment in Rock-McGraw, Inc., which owns our headquarters building in New York City, and remained an anchor tenant in our corporate headquarters building in New York City by concurrently leasing back space from the buyer through 2020. In December of 2013, we entered into an arrangement with the buyer to shorten the lease to December 2015 in exchange for approximately $60 million which was recorded as a reduction to the unrecognized deferred gain from the sale. The remaining gain is being amortized over the remaining lease term as a reduction in rent expense.

As of March 31, 2014, the remaining deferred gain was $39 million, as $6 million was amortized during the three months ended March 31, 2014. Interest expense associated with this operating lease for the three months ended March 31, 2014 was less than $1 million.

Related Party Agreements

In June of 2012, we entered into a new license agreement (the "License Agreement") with the holder of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC noncontrolling interest, CME Group, which replaced the 2005 license agreement between S&P DJ Indices and CME Group. Under the terms of the License Agreement, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC receives a share of the profits from the trading and clearing of CME Group's equity index products. During the three months ended March 31, 2014, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC earned $12 million of revenue under the terms of the License Agreement. The entire amount of this revenue is included in our consolidated statement of income, and the portion related to the 27% noncontrolling interest is removed in net income attributable to noncontrolling interests.

Legal Matters

There have been no amendments to the disclosure in Note 12 — Commitments and Contingencies to the consolidated financial statements of our Form 10-K.

We believe that the claims asserted and/or contemplated in the proceedings described in Note 12 — Commitments and Contingencies to the consolidated financial statements of our Form 10-K have no basis and they will be vigorously defended by the Company and/or the subsidiaries involved.

In view of the inherent difficulty of predicting the outcome of legal matters, particularly where the claimants seek very large or indeterminate damages, or where the cases present novel legal theories, involve a large number of parties or are in early stages of discovery, we cannot state with confidence what the eventual outcome of the pending matters described in Note 12 —Commitments and Contingencies to the consolidated financial statements of our Form 10-K will be, what the timing of the ultimate resolution of these matters will be or what the eventual loss, fines, penalties or impact related to each pending matter may be. We believe, based on our current knowledge, the outcome of the legal actions, proceedings and investigations currently pending should not have a material, adverse effect on our consolidated financial statements.