The Royal Bank of Scotland Group could pay as much as $4.5 billion to resolve claims of misconduct in its handling of U.S. mortgage securities, according to an article in Bloomberg.
RBS may be closer to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s $4 billion accord with the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency over its sale of mortgage-backed securities than Deutsche Bank AG’s $1.9 billion deal, Elliott Stein, an analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote on Wednesday.
The suit was first announced back in April. Nomura Holdings and the Royal Bank of Scotland’s trial with the Federal Housing Finance Agency were the first out of 18 lawsuits to reach trial. The other 16 banks sued by the FHFA opted to settle.
The FHFA, suing on behalf of government-owned lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is seeking to add to more than $19 billion it’s already collected in settlements from 16 other banks. Edinburgh-based RBS has set aside about 2.1 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) to cover the cost of the lawsuit.
If the Bloomberg article holds true, then RBS is about a billion bucks short in its estimation of damages.
