Goldman Sachs will pay $3.9bn (£3.3bn) to the Malaysian government to settle a “long-running” investigation into its role in raising $6.5bn of bonds for the “scandal-hit” 1MDB fund in 2013, says Michael O’Dwyer in The Daily Telegraph. The fund was set up by Malaysian businessman Jho Low and then prime minister Najib Razak to finance infrastructure projects in Malaysia, but as much as $4.5bn was allegedly “siphoned off” in order to fund the “lavish lifestyles” of some of Kuala Lumpur’s most influential families. Goldman Sachs’s investment banking unit was paid $600m in fees for its dealings with 1MDB.
The deal represents a major setback for Goldman Sachs, which had previously argued that members of the former Malaysian government and 1MDB lied to it “about how proceeds from the bond sales would be used”, says Katherine Griffiths in The Times. What’s more, although the deal draws to a close part of the “long-running investigation” into the matter, the investment bank remains under investigation in the US. Tim Leissner, the ex-Goldman Sachs partner who led the deal with 1MDB, has already pleaded guilty to American charges of money laundering and bribery.
Shrugging off the penalty
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