Goldman mortgage settlement is much less than meets the eye

New York

STATE and federal officials said on Monday that Goldman Sachs would pay US$5.1 billion to settle accusations of wrongdoing before the global financial crisis.

But that is just on paper. Buried in the fine print are provisions that allow Goldman to pay hundreds of millions of dollars less - perhaps as much as US$1 billion less - than that headline figure. And that is before the tax benefits of the deal are included.