BUSINESSJULY 15, 2010, 5:08 P.M. ET
Goldman to Pay $550 Million to Settle SEC Suit
By FAWN JOHNSON
WASHINGTON—The Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that will resolve its lawsuit against the firm alleging that it misled investors in a subprime mortgage product, the agency announced Thursday.
The SEC sued Goldman in April, charging it with fraud in marketing of a complex financial product called Abacus 2007-AC1 that was based on mortgage-backed securities. The suit is the highest profile of a number of inquiries regulators are making into synthetic collateralized debt obligations.
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Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs
In agreeing to the SEC's largest-ever penalty paid by a Wall Street firm, Goldman also acknowledged that its marketing materials for the subprime product contained incomplete information, the SEC said.
Goldman denied any wrong doing in the SEC lawsuit but has been under pressure from shareholders to reach a settlement on the fraud lawsuit and other SEC probes.
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The firm faced a Monday deadline to file a response to the lawsuit, which accuses the firm of selling the CDO without disclosing to other participants in the deal that hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co. helped select some of the underlying mortgage securities and was betting on the financial instrument's decline.
Settlement papers filed in a New York court contained the following statement from Goldman. "It was a mistake for the Goldman marketing materials to state that the reference portfolio was 'selected by' ACA Management LLC without disclosing the role of Paulson & Co. Inc. in the portfolio selection process and that Paulson's economic interests were adverse to CDO investors. Goldman regrets that the marketing materials did not contain that disclosure."
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"This settlement is a stark lesson to Wall Street firms that no product is too complex, and no investor too sophisticated, to avoid a heavy price if a firm violates the fundamental principles of honest treatment and fair dealing," said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.
In addition to the Abacus deal, the SEC has sought information about other CDOs the firm was involved with, without disclosing which deals are being investigated.
A Senate subcommittee cited three Goldman debt pools in an April report about conflicts of interest: Hudson Mezzanine 2006-1, Anderson Mezzanine Funding 2007-1 and Timberwolf I.
Shares of Goldman climbed more than 4% late Thursday after the SEC announced that its enforcement division would make a "significant announcement."
Write to Fawn Johnson at
fawn.johnson@dowjones.com