Deutsche Bank AG has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit by women who say they were abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. The proposed class action in Manhattan federal court was confirmed by the accusers’ lawyers late on Wednesday. Epstein had been a Deutsche Bank client from 2013 to 2018.
The bank acknowledged error in making Epstein a client and has since invested more than 4 billion euros to bolster its controls, processes and training. David Boies, one of the accusers’ lawyers, said in a statement that Epstein’s abuses “could not have happened without the collaboration and support of many powerful individuals and institutions.”
It is unclear how the settlement might affect JPMorgan Chase & Co, which faces similar but larger lawsuits by Epstein’s accusers and by the U.S. Virgin Islands. Epstein was a JPMorgan client from 1998 to 2013. Last September, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $26.25 million to settle a U.S. shareholder lawsuit accusing the bank of lax oversight while doing business with risky, ultra-rich clients like Epstein.