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An independent monitor of Goldman Sachs' court-ordered obligation to provide $1.8 billion in consumer relief has declared the company's settlement "successfully completed."
In his sixteenth and final report, professional mediator and retired Boston University law professor Eric Green showed that Goldman Sachs has fulfilled the requirements mandated by the U.S. Department of Justice following a DOJ campaign to, as the department put it, "hold accountable those whose illegal conduct resulted in the financial crisis of 2008."
Goldman Sachs was charged with not liv[ing] up to the representations it made to investors about the products it was selling," according to the DOJ.
Green, assisted by a team of finance, accounting, and legal professionals, says that the restitutions made as of July 1 "have directly and materially assisted homeowners struggling to afford to stay in their homes."
"I am pleased that I and the professionals on my team were able to play a part in seeing that homeowners and communities received the full benefits of the $1.8 billion in consumer relief."
Green was named early on by the settling parties as an independent monitor responsible for determining whether Goldman Sachs fulfills its consumer-relief obligations.
Green noted that his last report "closes the book" on his oversight of three of the major bank settlements that grew out of the financial crisis of 2008.
"The remediation process through these proceedings has taken thirteen years, during which billions of dollars in relief has been provided to consumers injured by the housing market collapse and mortgage-backed securities catastrophe of the last decade and a half," Green reported. "The costs of this disaster have been enormous and, despite these settlements, are still being felt by many."
Green added that he appreciates the cooperation and effort of the many people and organizations responsible for providing this relief, but that he "sincerely hopes that the lessons learned about the behaviors that created the situation in the first place will not be forgotten so that in the future similar calamities may be prevented in the first place."
