By Dan Byrne for AMLi
Goldman Sachs Group will reportedly avoid a US criminal conviction by promising more than $2 billion to the American Department of Justice.
Expected by unnamed insiders to be announced in days, the settlement will distance the company from investigations of its role in the long-running financial scandal involving Malaysian government organisation 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
This strategic development company had previously been identified as a facility for several individuals to channel millions of dollars to their private bank accounts.
Goldman Sachs was alleged to have taken part in the raising of some $6.5 billion for the entity between 2012 and 2013, from which the company collected over $600 million from bond sales, Bloomberg reported.
Word of this potential settlement follows news of a previous one with the Malaysian government in July – worth a further $2.5 billion. Charges against Goldman Sachs in Malaysia were subsequently dropped in September.
The 1MDB scandal, which initially broke in 2015, resulted in a conveyor belt of accusations against former Prime Minister Najib Razak and close contacts who are alleged to have used the entity to illegally transfer funds for personal benefit.
It was described as a “massive fraud and money laundering scheme,” by California attorney Nick Hanna in September. He was speaking on the recent seizure of assets worth more than $60 million from Malaysian Film Producer Riza Aziz, who was alleged to have been linked to the scandal.
Share this on:
Follow us on:
We hope you enjoyed reading this article
If you would like unlimited access to AML Intelligence premium articles, newsletter delivered twice a week, access to our Global Bank Fines and Penalties database, free access to Boardroom Series events and much more, select one of our subscription options and become a subscriber!
