JPMorgan Chase will pay $330 million to the government of Malaysia to settle claims that it facilitated the processing of $800 million in fraudulent transactions linked to the looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB.
The settlement, which binds both parties from any future claims or litigations related to the scandal, follows allegations by Malaysian authorities that the bank’s Swiss unit in Malaysia assisted in the funneling of payments out of the sovereign fund and into a fraudulent joint venture, 1MDB PetroSaudi, on behalf of two businessmen convicted of fraud, criminal mismanagement, and money laundering last year.
The transactions processed by JPMorgan in Switzerland were linked to oil deals supposedly back by Saudi Arabia, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Margot Patrick.
The settlement announcement coincides with the resolution of a criminal probe by Switzerland’s attorney general’s office in which JPMorgan will pay approximately $3.7 million for failing to prevent money laundering in separate transactions made in 2014 and 2015, the newspaper said.
Read more by The Wall Street Journal here.