Goldman Sachs Group Inc. yesterday said that it was clawing back $174 million in executive compensation and had agreed to pay $2.9 billion over its role in Malaysia’s 1MDB corruption scandal, lifting a cloud that has hung over the bank for years, Reuters reported. The settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and other U.S. and overseas regulators resolves a probe into the role Goldman Sachs bankers played in helping to steal cash, which Goldman helped raise, from the Malaysian state fund. While the scandal has proved a humbling and costly saga for the Wall Street giant, the long-awaited settlement should allow Chief Executive David Solomon to accelerate his plans to turn the bank around after a decade of under-performance, analysts said. Under terms of the deal, Goldman agreed to pay a $2.3 billion fine for breaking anti-bribery laws and to disgorge $600 million of ill-gotten gains as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, which also requires it to improve its compliance controls.
