The largest bank in the nation will pay $75 million to settle the case; $55 million will go to charities and programmes that help victims, and the remaining $20 million will cover the legal costs of the company Motley Rice.
While there are no admissions of liability in the settlement, JPMorgan said in a statement provided to Yahoo Finance that it “deeply regrets any association with this man” and that it “would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he was using the bank in any way to commit his heinous crimes.”
The agreement puts an end to the case’s nine-month legal battle, which started in December of last year when the US Virgin Islands sought up to $190 million in compensation from the bank over claims that it disregarded warning signs about the disgraced financier and chose to turn a blind eye. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in October.
Yahoo Finance contacted the US Virgin Islands for comment, but they didn’t get back to them right away.
According to the settlement’s terms, JPMorgan will donate $30 million to US Virgin Islands nonprofits that fight sex trafficking and assist survivors in healing. A further $25 million will be given to the government of the US Virgin Islands to help with infrastructure improvements and law enforcement initiatives to stop and combat human trafficking and other crimes on US territory.
A confidential arrangement was also reached, according to JPMorgan, with James “Jes” Staley, a former executive who co-led the asset management division with Epstein. Later, Staley rose to the position of divisional CEO for corporate and investment banking.
Previously, the bank asserted that Staley had deceived its officials regarding Epstein. The accusations have been refuted by Staley’s solicitors.
A separate settlement in a US class-action lawsuit filed by hundreds of Epstein’s alleged victims was reached by JPMorgan in June. Attorney for the victims David Boies reported a $290 million settlement with the multinational bank.
The alleged victims, who were all juveniles at the time of their interactions with Epstein, claimed that the bank’s association with Epstein had damaged them because it supported his global sex trafficking enterprise by providing banking services.
The agreement was reached a few weeks after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, revealed in a deposition what he knew about Epstein’s financial activities while the convicted sex offender was a regular client of the institution.
At a May 26 deposition held at JPMorgan’s Manhattan headquarters, Dimon repeatedly asserted that he had never spoken to or met Epstein. He added that he didn’t recall any of his executives ever telling him anything.
JPMorgan agreed to pay a total of $365 million in settlements for their association with Epstein, which lasted until 2013.
Earlier this year, Deutsche Bank and Epstein’s victims reached a $75 million settlement in their legal dispute. In 2013, when Epstein was fired from JPMorgan, the bank accepted him as a client.
Epstein was detained in 2019 on suspicion of trafficking in children after entering a guilty plea in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. Later, he was discovered dead in a prison, apparently by suicide.