JPMorgan said on Tuesday that $55 million of the settlement will go towards local charities and victim support. Another $20 million will be spent on legal fees.
JPMorgan Chase, a top provider of financial services globally, has agreed to pay the U.S. Virgin Islands $75 million to resolve allegations that the bank permitted financier Jeffrey Epstein to engage in sex trafficking.
According to the Voice of Nigeria (VOA), JPMorgan said on Tuesday that $55 million of the settlement will go towards local charities and victim support. Another $20 million will be spent on legal fees.
Mr Epstein was an American sex offender and financier until his demise in a federal prison in 2019.
The Virgin Islands, where the sex offender had an estate, filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan last year, alleging that its investigation indicated that the financial services firm enabled Mr Epstein’s recruiters to pay victims and was “indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise.”
The Virgin Islands alleged that JPMorgan was involved in Mr Epstein’s behaviour by failing to alert law enforcement or bank regulators to his status as a “high-risk” customer who made repeated significant cash withdrawals.
The bank also announced a private lawsuit settlement with James “Jes” Staley, a former top JPMorgan official who oversaw Mr Epstein’s account before leaving the firm.
JPMorgan sued Mr Staley earlier this year, accusing him of covering up or downplaying Mr Epstein’s crimes to keep the lucrative business.
JPMorgan had already agreed to pay $290 million in a class-action lawsuit involving victims of Mr Epstein’s drug trafficking activities in June.
