Irish Examiner view: Is bank’s $5bn fine just a business cost?

Goldman Sachsis to pay a record foreign bribery penalty in America US and will enter a guilty plea for the first time over its role in the plundering of Malaysia’s 1MDB investment fund.

The pandemic has extended our vernacular around figures. We now speak of billions when once, not so very long ago, we spoke of millions. At one stage it was suggested our Government might have to borrow up to €30bn next year just to do what government does. That figure, daunting in Irish terms, is, however, considerably less than the revenues generated by the multinational investment bank and financial services company Goldman Sachs last year. That New York conglomerate generated $36.55bn in revenues in 2019.

That powerful company is to pay a record foreign bribery penalty in America US and will enter a guilty plea for the first time over its role in the plundering of Malaysia’s 1MDB investment fund. The blow was softened as Goldman Sachs avoided the type of conviction that might have lost institutional clients precluded from working with financial firms with criminal records. The bank will pay more than $2.3bn in fines in America - the largest such penalty in US history - but its global sanction stands at over $5bn.