Goldman’s Malaysia Unit Set to Plead Guilty in 1MDB Scandal

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Malaysian subsidiary will plead guilty for the firm’s role in the plundering of Malaysia’s 1MDB investment fund.

At a federal court appearance Thursday, lawyers for the bank said Goldman Sachs Malaysia will enter a guilty plea on one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The plea is part of deal with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The deal concludes one of the biggest bank probes inherited by the Trump administration. It holds Goldman Sachs to account for its role in raising $6.5 billion for 1MDB, much of which U.S. authorities say was stolen by people connected to the country’s former prime minister and diverted into high-end art and real estate, a super yacht and the Hollywood movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

In July, Goldman Sachs agreed to a settlement with Malaysia that included a payment of $2.5 billion and an unusual provision that the bank would guarantee that the Asian nation would recoup an additional $1.4 billion from 1MDB assets seized around the world. Malaysia dropped criminal charges against the bank as part of that deal.

Goldman Sachs’s Asian unit was fined $350 million by Hong Kong’s financial regulator over the 1MDB matter, according to a statement earlier Thursday.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Sridhar Natarajan in New York at snatarajan15@bloomberg.net;
Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net

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