The most recent cost to Wells Fargo & Co. arising out of its fake-account scandal is a $480 settlement with its shareholders. The settlement resolves the main class-action suit brought by shareholders targeting the bank’s allegedly deficient disclosures related to its sales practices.
This is the latest cost for Wells Fargo from a consumer banking scandal that arose in September 2016. That issue, in which employees opened as many as 3.5 million bogus accounts, ultimately cost then-CEO John Stumpf his job. The bank still faces a bevy of other lawsuits on related matters.
Last month, the San Francisco-based bank settled with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for an unprecedented $1 billion to cover issues in auto lending and mortgages. In February, the Federal Reserve imposed a sanction prohibiting the bank from boosting total assets beyond their level at the end of 2017 until it fixes shortcomings.
The shareholder case is Hefler v. Wells Fargo & Co., 3:16-cv-05479, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).