The Justice Department on Monday announced a roughly $5 billion settlement with Goldman Sachs over the sale of mortgage-backed securities leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, with the government accusing the bank of misleading investors about the quality of its loans.
The $5.06 billion deal resolves state and federal probes into the sale of shoddy mortgages in the run-up to the housing bubble and subsequent economic meltdown.
It requires the bank to pay a $2.39 billion civil penalty and an additional $1.8 billion in relief to underwater homeowners and distressed borrowers, along with $875 million in other claims.
The agreement, smaller than deals reached with several of Goldman’s Wall Street counterparts, is the latest in a series of multibillion-dollar civil settlements arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure or found themselves jobless. Other banks that settled in the last two years include Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
