JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) will pay $13 billion to settle the United States civil probes over its mortgage bond, which will make the investment bank one of those companies who has paid the highest mount for the legal settlement. Fine of $13 billion is also far ahead than the previous fines that were imposed by the Justice Department.
A report from Bloomberg lists down some of the previous big settlements, some of them are listed below:
Big settlements involving financial sector
Wall Street firms like UBS AG and Citigroup Inc agreed upon repurchasing more than $50 billion of auction rate securities to resolve state and federal complaints. Firms were accused of promoting instruments, which they considered as risk free, but during the financial meltdown of 2008 investors were struggled to get of their holdings. These firms were ordered to return more than $67 billion to investors.
The United States lenders namely JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co. and Ally Financial Inc were ordered to release $25 billion in payments and relief for the borrowers.
Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered UBS to pay $1.2 billion in fines alleging that the bank tried to rig the LIBOR rate, which is taken as a standard for deciding on the rate of more than $300 trillion of financial products all over the world.
Other big settlements
In 1988, largest tobacco companies of the United States settled with the state government by paying $246 billion. Among all tobacco companies involved in the settlement, Philip Morris Cos. And R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings settled down with 50 states attorney general to pay out money over 25 years, bring down the marketing and take necessary measures to reduce smoking.
BP PLC was ordered by Justice Department and SEC to pay $4.53 billion in settlement including a $1.26 billion criminal fine, relating to 2010 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that claimed life of 11 workers and set off the worst offshore oil spill in the U.S. history.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc paid $3 billion as settlement to resolve criminal and civil accusations that the company illegally marketed prescription drugs and failed to report safety data. This was the biggest fraud related to health care industry in the United States and also included $956.8 million criminal fine.
