--- alias: - Goldman Sachs - Goldman - The Goldman Sachs Group - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Goldman Sachs Group - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Goldman, Sachs & Co. - Goldman Sachs & Co. - Goldman Sachs and Co. - Goldman Sachs International - GS&Co category: Private Organization created: 2026-10-01 location: New York, New York relations: - fn: 2 reverse: true role: co-chairman type: employed_by with: '[[Robert Rubin]]' - fn: 3 reverse: true role: chairman and chief executive officer; resignation effective on confirmation as Treasury Secretary start: 1999-05 type: head_of with: '[[Henry Paulson]]' - fn: 4 reverse: true role: chairman and chief executive officer, named successor to Paulson on 2006-06-02 type: head_of with: '[[Lloyd Blankfein]]' - fn: 9 reverse: true role: partner; chief information officer type: employed_by with: '[[Steven Mnuchin]]' - end: 2002-12-12 fn: 3 reverse: true role: director; resigned on becoming Director of the National Economic Council start: 2002-05 type: director_of with: '[[Stephen Friedman]]' - fn: 10 reverse: true role: director; chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from January 2008 start: 2005-04 type: director_of with: '[[Stephen Friedman]]' - fn: 10 reverse: true role: director start: 2006-11 type: director_of with: '[[Rajat Gupta]]' - fn: 10 reverse: true role: director; vice chairman of Perseus start: 1999-05 type: director_of with: '[[James A. Johnson]]' - end: 2007-01 fn: 12 reverse: true role: partner and managing director; chief U.S. economist for a decade type: employed_by with: '[[William Dudley]]' - fn: 13 reverse: true role: partner; co-head of Finance type: employed_by with: '[[Gary Gensler]]' - end: 2016-12-31 fn: 14 reverse: true role: president and chief operating officer; director type: employed_by with: '[[Gary Cohn]]' - fn: 21 reverse: true role: executive director, Structured Products Group Trading (as of April 2010) type: employed_by with: '[[Fabrice Tourre]]' - end: 2011-04-13 fn: 20 reverse: true role: mortgage-related inquiry; hearing on 2010-04-27 and staff report type: investigated with: '[[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]]' - end: 2010-07-15 fn: 22 reverse: true role: civil fraud action over ABACUS 2007-AC1, settled for 550 million dollars start: 2010-04-16 type: prosecuted with: '[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]' - end: 2012-08-09 fn: 25 reverse: true role: criminal inquiry into the mortgage allegations in the Senate report; closed without charges type: investigated with: '[[Department of Justice]]' - end: 2008-04 fn: 29 role: counterparty to nine derivative trades; the authority's claim to set them aside was dismissed on 2016-10-14 start: 2007-09 type: contractor_to with: '[[Libyan Investment Authority]]' - fn: 29 reverse: true role: employee seconded to work alongside Libyan Investment Authority staff from autumn 2007 type: employed_by with: '[[Youssef Kabbaj]]' - end: 2013-03-19 fn: 35 role: underwriter of three bond issues start: 2012-05 type: contractor_to with: '[[1Malaysia Development Berhad]]' - fn: 35 reverse: true role: three-year deferred prosecution agreement over 1MDB; subsidiary guilty plea start: 2020-10-22 type: prosecuted with: '[[Department of Justice]]' - end: 2016-02 fn: 35 reverse: true role: participating managing director; vice chairman of Investment Banking in Asia ex-Japan start: 1998 type: employed_by with: '[[Tim Leissner]]' - fn: 35 reverse: true role: managing director and agent type: employed_by with: '[[Roger Ng]]' - fn: 30 reverse: true role: registered lobbyist, 2010 filings type: represented with: '[[Breaux Lott Leadership Group]]' - fn: 30 reverse: true role: registered lobbyist, 2009 and 2010 filings type: represented with: '[[The Duberstein Group]]' - fn: 30 reverse: true role: registered lobbyist, 2009 and 2010 filings type: represented with: '[[Gephardt Group Government Affairs]]' - end: 2026-06-30 fn: 39 reverse: true role: general counsel; co-chair of the reputational risk committee start: 2020 type: employed_by with: '[[Kathryn Ruemmler]]' start: 1869 summary: New York investment bank founded in 1869 whose former executives became Treasury officials, which paid 550 million dollars in 2010 over a mortgage CDO and entered a 2020 deferred prosecution agreement over 1MDB bribery. tags: - Organization - GoldmanSachs - InvestmentBank - WallStreet - RevolvingDoor - FinancialCrisis - Abacus - AIGBailout - OneMDB - TreasuryDepartment - Lobbying updated: 2026-10-01 --- Goldman Sachs is an investment bank founded in 1869 and headquartered in New York.[^1] Its chairmen, chief executives and executives have moved into the United States Department of the Treasury, the [White House](/places/white-house/) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the firm has been the subject of a United States Senate inquiry, a [Securities and Exchange Commission](/organizations/securities-and-exchange-commission/) fraud action, a criminal inquiry that ended without charges, a civil suit by the Libyan Investment Authority that failed, and a corporate criminal resolution over bribery in Malaysia. ### Executives in the Treasury and the White House The Treasury's departmental history states that Robert Rubin worked twenty-six years at Goldman Sachs, where he rose to Co-Chairman, before serving as the first director of the National Economic Council from 1993 to 1995 and as Secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999.[^2] Henry Paulson was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs from May 1999 and had been its Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998.[^3] On May 30, 2006, President [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush/) announced his intention to nominate Paulson as Secretary of the Treasury. On June 2, 2006, Paulson submitted a letter resigning from his positions at the firm effective on his confirmation, and the firm announced that its board intended to elect Lloyd Blankfein, then President and Chief Operating Officer, as his successor.[^4] On June 19, 2006, the firm announced that Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried would become presidents and co-chief operating officers, and John S. Weinberg a vice chairman, if the Senate confirmed Paulson.[^5] On June 22, 2006, the Office of Legal Counsel advised the General Counsel of the Office of Government Ethics that an incoming Secretary of the Treasury could buy government bonds with the proceeds of a stock sale under a certificate of divestiture issued under 26 U.S.C. section 1043, provided that he purchased the bonds after the President signed his commission and before he took the oath of office.[^6] A prospectus filed by Goldman Sachs on June 29, 2006 registered 3,230,024 shares of common stock for resale by Paulson as selling shareholder, "confirmed by the United States Senate as the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States." The filing stated that he also held vested restricted stock units for 494,054 shares and exercisable options for 680,474 shares, and that the three holdings together were about 1.02 percent of the outstanding shares.[^7] The Treasury's history records that Paulson arrived in July 2006 after a 32-year career in finance with the firm, eight years of it as chairman and chief executive.[^8] Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury from 2017 to 2021, worked earlier at Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner and chief information officer.[^9] Stephen Friedman retired from the firm as Senior Partner and Chairman of the Management Committee in 1994. The proxy statement of 2003 records that he was appointed to the board in May 2002 and resigned on December 12, 2002 on becoming Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council.[^3] The proxy statement filed on April 6, 2009 lists him as a director since April 2005. In the same biography the firm recorded that he had been Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since January 2008, Chairman of the [President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board](/organizations/presidents-foreign-intelligence-advisory-board/) and of the Intelligence Oversight Board from January 2006 to January 2009, Chairman of the private equity firm Stone Point Capital since June 2006, and a board member of the [Council on Foreign Relations](/organizations/council-on-foreign-relations/).[^10] On May 7, 2009, the New York Fed announced that Friedman had resigned as chairman of its board. Its general counsel, Thomas C. Baxter Jr., stated in the announcement that Friedman's purchases of Goldman shares in December 2008 and January 2009 "did not violate any Federal Reserve statute, rule or policy."[^11] On January 27, 2009 the New York Fed named William Dudley its president and chief executive officer, succeeding Timothy Geithner. The announcement identified Friedman as chairman of the bank's board and of the search committee that selected him, and recorded that before joining the New York Fed in January 2007 Dudley had been a partner and managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and for a decade the firm's chief U.S. economist.[^12] Gary Gensler worked for eighteen years at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner and, in his last role, co-head of Finance. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets from 1997 to 1999 and Under Secretary for Domestic Finance from 1999 to 2001, and Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from May 26, 2009 to January 3, 2014.[^13] Gary Cohn, President and Chief Operating Officer and a director, resigned from the firm effective December 31, 2016 on President-elect [Donald Trump](/people/donald-trump/)'s announcement that he would be Director of the National Economic Council. The firm's report stated that he would remain affiliated as a senior director until joining the administration.[^14] A second report, dated January 24, 2017, recorded that Cohn's 2016 compensation was 20 million dollars, that restricted stock units held for later delivery were delivered on January 23, 2017 under a "Conflicted Employment" provision of the equity plan, and that he received cash of about 47 million dollars for long-term performance awards and about 18 million dollars for performance-based restricted stock units after a special committee shortened their performance periods to end on December 31, 2016 and settled them on January 23, 2017.[^15] ### Waivers and calls in September 2008 Gretchen Morgenson and Don Van Natta Jr. reported in *[The New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/)* on August 9, 2009, from Paulson's calendars obtained under the [Freedom of Information Act](/events/freedom-of-information-act/), that before taking office he had agreed to avoid substantive interaction with Goldman executives unless he first obtained an ethics waiver. They reported that copies of two waivers, one from the White House counsel's office and one from the Treasury, showed that both were issued on the afternoon of September 17, 2008, the day after the government agreed to lend 85 billion dollars to American International Group; that Paulson and Blankfein spoke five times that day, two of the calls before the waivers were granted; and that the two spoke two dozen times during the week of the AIG rescue. At a House hearing on July 16, 2009, Paulson said, "I operated very consistently within the ethic guidelines I had as secretary of the Treasury," and that he had asked for a waiver "when it became clear that we had some very significant issues with Goldman Sachs." His spokeswoman, Michele Davis, told the newspaper that the ethics agreement did not prevent him from talking to Goldman executives to keep abreast of market developments and that Federal Reserve officials, not Paulson, played the lead role in the AIG rescue.[^16] Nomi Prins reported in *The Daily Beast* on October 12, 2009 on her review of 415 pages of Paulson's calendar covering March 2008 and August 2008 to January 2009. She counted 19 calls in total between Blankfein and Paulson from September 18 to 21, 2008, which she identified as the days on which bank holding company status was approved for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, against nine in total between Paulson and Morgan Stanley's John Mack, and 26 calls between Paulson and Rubin, then at Citigroup, against eight with Citigroup's chief executive Vikram Pandit.[^17] The [Federal Reserve Board](/organizations/federal-reserve-board/) announced on the evening of Sunday, September 21, 2008 that it had approved, pending a five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies, and that it had authorized the New York Fed to extend credit to their U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries against all types of collateral that could be pledged at its primary credit facility or at the Primary Dealer Credit Facility.[^18] ### Directors in 2009 The proxy statement filed on April 6, 2009 named as non-employee directors John H. Bryan, Claes Dahlbäck, Friedman, William W. George, Rajat Gupta, James A. Johnson, Lois D. Juliber, Lakshmi Mittal and Ruth J. Simmons. Johnson, a vice chairman of the private equity firm Perseus and from 1991 to 1998 chairman and chief executive of Fannie Mae, was listed as a member of the American Friends of Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations and the [Trilateral Commission](/organizations/trilateral-commission/). Dahlbäck was senior advisor to Investor AB and to Foundation Asset Management, which is owned by three Wallenberg foundations. Gupta, Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company, was an independent director of the Qatar Financial Authority and sat on the boards of AMR Corporation, Genpact, Harman International and Procter & Gamble.[^10] The same proxy statement described Goldman's dealings with two directors' companies. Mittal, chairman and chief executive of ArcelorMittal and owner of about 43 percent of its shares, was the counterparty to a credit facility of about 17 billion euros begun in December 2006 in which Goldman agreed to lend up to 500 million euros (the largest loan outstanding in fiscal 2008 was about 135 million euros, and ArcelorMittal paid about 12.6 million euros in interest). The firm was joint book-runner on a 3 billion dollar ArcelorMittal bond offering in May 2008, participated in a second facility of about 4 billion dollars, and advised on a tender offer of about 1.66 billion dollars for ArcelorMittal Inox Brasil. Dahlbäck served on the investment committees of funds managed by the private equity firm EQT and received less than one percent of their profits; funds managed by a Goldman subsidiary had invested 18.7 million euros in one EQT fund and 30.0 million euros in another. The board deemed these transactions immaterial to the directors' independence.[^10] The Second Circuit's opinion in *United States v. Gupta* records that Goldman Sachs held a special board meeting at 3:15 p.m. on September 23, 2008 to approve an investment of 5 billion dollars in the firm by Warren Buffett; that Gupta took part by telephone from a McKinsey conference room from 3:13 to 3:53 p.m.; and that at about 3:54 p.m. his assistant dialed the direct line of Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, and connected Gupta's line to it for 30 to 35 seconds. Gupta was convicted by a jury before Judge [Jed Rakoff](/people/jed-rakoff/), in a judgment entered on November 9, 2012, of one count of conspiracy and three counts of securities fraud for trades in Goldman stock by Rajaratnam in the fall of 2008, and was sentenced to 24 months and a fine of 5 million dollars. The court noted that the evidence of disclosure was circumstantial, and affirmed the judgment.[^19] ### Mortgage positions and the Senate inquiry The staff report of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, issued on April 13, 2011 under Chairman Carl Levin and Ranking Member Tom Coburn, stated that in 2006 and 2007 Goldman Sachs designed and underwrote 93 residential mortgage-backed securitizations and 27 mortgage-related collateralized debt obligations totaling about 100 billion dollars. It stated that in December 2006 the firm reversed course, sold or wrote down most of its subprime inventory, and built a net short position that peaked at 13.9 billion dollars and produced record profits of 3.7 billion dollars for its Structured Products Group in 2007, which combined with other mortgage losses left the Mortgage Department with net revenues of 1.2 billion dollars. It examined four CDOs, Hudson 1, Anderson, Timberwolf and Abacus 2007-AC1, and stated that in Hudson 1 the firm took the whole short side of a 2 billion dollar CDO and made a gain of 1.7 billion dollars. It reported that a senior executive, Thomas Montag, wrote to the Mortgage Department head, Daniel Sparks, "boy that timeberwof was one shitty deal." It stated that Timberwolf securities lost 80 percent of their value within five months of issue, and that Goldman held 36 percent of the short position and lost money overall when it could not sell all of the securities.[^20] The subcommittee held a hearing on April 27, 2010. The witnesses were Sparks, Joshua Birnbaum, Michael Swenson, Fabrice Tourre, the chief financial officer David Viniar, the chief risk officer Craig Broderick, and Blankfein. Blankfein told the subcommittee that the firm had received an investment from the government in 2008, held it for about eight months, and repaid it with a 23 percent annualized return. He also said: "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients."[^21] The SEC filed suit against Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Tourre on April 16, 2010 in the Southern District of New York (10 Civ. 3229). The complaint alleged that the marketing materials for ABACUS 2007-AC1 stated that the portfolio had been selected by ACA Management LLC without disclosing that the hedge fund Paulson & Co. had taken part in the selection and had taken a short position through credit default swaps with Goldman.[^22] On July 15, 2010, the SEC announced that Goldman had agreed to pay 550 million dollars. In the settlement papers the firm acknowledged that the marketing materials "contained incomplete information" and that it "was a mistake" to state that ACA had selected the portfolio without disclosing the role of Paulson & Co.[^23] A jury found Tourre liable on August 1, 2013, and the final judgment filed on March 27, 2014 imposed disgorgement of 175,463 dollars, interest of 31,150.91 dollars and a civil penalty of 650,000 dollars.[^24] On August 9, 2012, the Justice Department stated that its investigators and prosecutors, including those in its Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, had "determined that, based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report" from Levin's subcommittee. David Ingram of Reuters reported that Levin had asked for a criminal investigation in April 2011.[^25] ### AIG counterparty payments The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Neil Barofsky, testified on January 27, 2010 that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had telephoned eight of the largest counterparties of American International Group's financial products unit over two days to seek concessions, that only UBS had offered a 2 percent concession if the others did so, and that the New York Fed then paid the counterparties the market value of the underlying CDOs while they kept collateral already posted, so that they were effectively paid par. According to his statement, the decision was brought before the board of directors of the New York Fed and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and each approved it.[^26] A staff memorandum of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission dated September 17, 2010, marked as a draft, stated that Goldman bought 33 credit default swaps from AIG's financial products unit, covering 21 billion dollars, or 27 percent of AIG's 78 billion dollar portfolio of such swaps at the end of 2007. It recorded that AIG's collateral postings to Goldman rose from 2.4 billion dollars at the end of 2007 to 7.6 billion dollars on September 16, 2008 and 11.9 billion dollars on November 24, 2008. In the Maiden Lane III transaction of November 24, 2008, Goldman retained 8.4 billion dollars of collateral and received 5.6 billion dollars. The memorandum added 3.4 billion dollars received through July 6, 2010 on ten swaps outside Maiden Lane III, 1.9 billion dollars of it after the New York Fed's 85 billion dollar loan to AIG on September 16, 2008, and stated that 2.9 billion dollars of that amount arose from proprietary positions on seven ABACUS CDOs and commercial mortgage securities, not from the firm's matched book. It recorded day-one revenues of 24.8 million dollars, about 3.25 basis points, on the matched book of 16.9 billion dollars notional.[^27] Goldman Sachs told the inspector general that it had sold equivalent protection to clients and bought protection from AIG to hedge, that a concession to the New York Fed would have produced a loss, and that with 8.4 billion dollars of collateral, more than 1.2 billion dollars of protection bought from third parties at a cost of over 100 million dollars, and an underlying value it calculated at 4.3 billion dollars, it "did not consider itself materially at risk if AIG in fact defaulted." The inspector general's report added that Goldman and the market as a whole had benefited from Maiden Lane III and the continued viability of AIG, and that if AIG had defaulted Goldman would have borne the risk of further declines in the value of the 4.3 billion dollars of CDOs and of about 5.5 billion dollars of swaps outside Maiden Lane III.[^28] ### Libyan Investment Authority In *The Libyan Investment Authority v Goldman Sachs International*, Mrs Justice Rose of the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division) recorded that the authority, set up as a sovereign wealth fund, had at least 30 billion dollars of assets in late 2007 and early 2008, that Goldman Sachs Asset Management first contacted it in November 2006, and that between September 2007 and April 2008 the two entered into transactions including nine leveraged derivative trades concluded from January to April 2008. The premiums paid by the authority were equivalent to about 1.2 billion dollars and the exposure it gained was about 5.2 billion dollars, with maturities in 2011. The authority sought to rescind the trades for undue influence, including an allegation that Goldman had influenced its deputy chairman, Mustafa Zarti, to agree the April trades by offering his younger brother, Haitem Zarti, an internship at the bank.[^29] The judge found that Goldman's employee Youssef Kabbaj took Haitem Zarti on trips to Marrakesh and Dubai and paid for meals and hotels, and that the entertainment "was inappropriate and in flagrant breach of Goldman Sachs' policy on entertaining clients," but that there was no evidence that Mustafa Zarti knew of its extent. She found that the main motivation for the internship was Goldman's belief that Haitem might lead the authority's planned London office, that Mustafa Zarti was keen for his brother to work as an intern, and that the offer "did not have a material influence on the decision" to enter the April trades. She dismissed the claim on October 14, 2016, finding no protected relationship of trust and confidence and no excessive profit given the nature of the trades. The judgment records that Mustafa Zarti was not cooperating with either party, and that in separate proceedings against Société Générale the authority alleged that payments were made to influence its decisions and named Zarti among those alleged to have been paid or threatened, allegations the Société Générale defendants denied and on which the judge formed no view.[^29] ### Lobbying and political giving Filings under the Lobbying Disclosure Act list expenses of 2.83 million dollars in 2009 and 4.61 million dollars in 2010 for the firm's own registrations under the client name Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Summing the latest filing for each client name, registrant and period, the filings under Goldman client names total about 4.47 million dollars in 2009 and 6.74 million dollars in 2010. Outside registrants in 2010 included Breaux Lott Leadership Group (450,000 dollars), The Duberstein Group (400,000), Avoq (320,000), Capitol Tax Partners (240,000), Gephardt Group Government Affairs (200,000) and The Harold Ford Group (100,000), and in 2009 and 2010 the McKinnon Group (80,000 each year).[^30] The firm's political action committee, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Political Action Committee (committee C00350744), reported receipts to the [Federal Election Commission](/organizations/federal-election-commission/) of 1,048,335 dollars in the 2008 cycle and 1,513,111 dollars in the 2010 cycle.[^31] In the same database, itemized contributions to Obama for America in the 2008 cycle from individuals listing "Goldman Sachs" as employer totaled 553,638.39 dollars in 764 contributions, the fourth largest total among named employers after [IBM](/organizations/ibm/), Microsoft and [Harvard University](/organizations/harvard-university/); "Morgan Stanley" employees gave 481,158.46 dollars and "Citigroup" employees 414,444.70 dollars.[^32] ### Greek swaps The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported on February 21, 2012, from a *BBC Newsnight* film by Nick Dunbar, that in 2001 Goldman Sachs arranged a swap with Greece that kept 2.8 billion euros of debt out of the national accounts, a sum that had grown to 5.7 billion euros. The head of the Greek Public Debt Management Agency at the time, Christoforos Sardelis, was interviewed. Dunbar had described the deal in *Risk* magazine in 2003. Goldman Sachs told *Newsnight* that the swaps "were one of several techniques that many European governments used to meet the terms of the [Maastricht] treaty" and supplied an email showing that it had discussed the deal with Eurostat. Eurostat described the discussion as concerning "general clarifications" and said it learned of the deal in 2010.[^33] ### Mirror Group pension shares A case study published in February 2023 by the Global Capitalism Project at the University of Oxford states that Goldman Sachs sold 25 million shares of [Mirror Group Newspapers](/organizations/mirror-group-newspapers/) on the instruction of [Robert Maxwell](/people/robert-maxwell/), shares clearly marked as owned by the Maxwell pension funds, and that the pension scheme lost 55 million pounds. It quotes the report of the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors on Mirror Group Newspapers as stating that Goldman Sachs "bear a substantial responsibility in respect of the manipulation that occurred in the market." The study states that Goldman Sachs has consistently pointed to the Maxwells as the sole bearers of responsibility for the fraud, and that Kevin Maxwell has said in talks that the firm enabled and was aware of the crimes.[^34] ### 1MDB The SEC's order of October 22, 2020 (Release No. 90243) found that former senior employees of Goldman Sachs used a third-party intermediary to bribe officials in Malaysia and [Abu Dhabi](/places/abu-dhabi/) to obtain business from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a Malaysian state-owned fund. Between 2012 and 2013 the firm underwrote three bond issues for 1MDB that raised about 6.5 billion dollars, from which it earned about 600 million dollars. Project Magnolia closed in May 2012 and yielded about 193 million dollars to the firm, Project Maximus closed on October 19, 2012 and yielded about 188 million dollars, and Project Catalyze was issued on March 19, 2013 and yielded about 186 million dollars. The order identified Tim Leissner, employed from 1998 to February 2016 and at the end a participating managing director, vice chairman of Investment Banking in Asia ex-Japan and chairman of South East Asia, and Roger Ng, a Malaysian national employed as a managing director from about 2009 to May 2014. It described Jho Low as a Malaysian national who held no formal position at 1MDB but exercised significant control over it, and Najib Razak as Prime Minister from 2009 to 2018 with authority over 1MDB. The order found that Leissner told a meeting of the firm's Capital Committee in April 2012 that Low was not involved in Project Magnolia although he and other senior employees knew he was, and that in October 2013 the firm's Intelligence Group told Leissner it could not advise Low's business entity as a client. The firm closed the related Project Condor transaction in January 2014 with Low's entity as a minority co-investor, for about 10 million dollars. Goldman Sachs agreed to a cease-and-desist order, disgorgement of 606.3 million dollars, deemed satisfied by a payment to the Government of Malaysia and 1MDB under an agreement of August 18, 2020, and a civil penalty of 400 million dollars. The order records that the firm entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice and a civil settlement with the Federal Reserve Board.[^35] The firm's annual report for 2020 states that on November 1, 2018 the Department of Justice unsealed a criminal information and guilty plea by Leissner and an indictment of Ng and Low, that the August 2020 agreement with the Government of Malaysia included a guarantee that Malaysia would receive at least 1.4 billion dollars in assets and proceeds of seized assets, that on October 22, 2020 the firm entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement on one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and that its subsidiary Goldman Sachs (Malaysia) pleaded guilty to one count of the same conspiracy.[^1] The firm's board stated on October 22, 2020 that none of the past or current members of senior management had been involved in or aware of the firm's participation in any illicit activity at the time of the bond transactions, and that it viewed the 1MDB matter as an institutional failure. It stated that it was seeking to claw back about 76 million dollars from Leissner, Ng and Andrea Vella, of which it held about 24 million dollars, that five former senior executive officers (the former chief executive, the former chief operating officer, a former chief financial officer, a former vice chairman who was chief executive of Goldman Sachs International, and a former vice chairman who was global head of growth markets) would forfeit awards totaling about 67 million dollars, and that current leaders' 2020 compensation would be reduced by 31 million dollars, for a total of about 174 million dollars.[^36] A report dated January 26, 2021 recorded reductions of 10 million dollars for David Solomon, 7 million for John Waldron and 7 million for Stephen Scherr.[^37] Leissner was sentenced on May 29, 2025 by Chief Judge Margo Brodie of the Eastern District of New York to 24 months on each of two counts, to run concurrently, and was ordered to forfeit 43.7 million dollars. Nina Pullano of *Courthouse News Service* reported that Ng, the only banker tried, received a ten-year sentence and that Low remained at large, and quoted Leissner's attorney, Henry Mazurek, who said after the sentencing that Goldman's role as a messenger calling for sanctions against Leissner "lacked all credibility."[^38] ### Epstein files and the general counsel [Kathryn Ruemmler](/people/kathryn-ruemmler/) became general counsel of Goldman Sachs in 2020 and co-chaired its reputational risk committee. In February 2026 she announced that she would leave the firm effective June 30, after the Justice Department's release of files on [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/) that included emails mentioning her from 2014 to 2019. CBS News reported that Solomon said, "I accepted her resignation, and I respect her decision," and that a December 2015 email quoted her as saying, "I adore him. It's like having another older brother!" CBS also reported her statement in a 2023 interview with *[The Wall Street Journal](/organizations/the-wall-street-journal/)*, "I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein."[^39] The Justice Department's Epstein library contains an email from Ruemmler to Epstein sent on December 20, 2017 at 12:18 p.m., whose full text reads: "I totally called it! Goldman picked Karen Seymour from [Sullivan & Cromwell](/organizations/sullivan-cromwell/), which I predicted from the very beginning."[^40] A scheduling email from Epstein's assistant [Lesley Groff](/people/lesley-groff/) dated May 12, 2014, headed "Possible Dinner Party Mon. May 19th?", is a planning note for a possible dinner on a date still to be determined ("May 19? June 1?") and lists under "Guests" fifteen names that include Lloyd Blankfein, [Jes Staley](/people/jes-staley/), [Larry Summers](/people/larry-summers/), [Ehud Barak](/people/ehud-barak/), [Leon Black](/people/leon-black/) and [Henry Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/)[^41] [^1]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, filed February 22, 2021 (business description, "Founded in 1869"; Note on legal proceedings, "1MDB-Related Matters"; guarantees note, "at least $1.4 billion"). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312521049380/d39654d10k.htm [^2]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Robert E. Rubin (1995 - 1999)," Prior Secretaries, history pages. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/robert-e-rubin-1995-1999 [^3]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A), filed February 27, 2003 (letter signed by Henry M. Paulson, Jr.; director biography of Paulson; notice of changes in directors regarding Stephen Friedman). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000095012303002098/y82715def14a.htm [^4]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed June 2, 2006, Items 5.02 and 8.01. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000095012306007325/y21951e8vk.htm [^5]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed June 19, 2006, Exhibit 99.1, press release "Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried Named Presidents and Co-Chief Operating Officers; John S. Weinberg Named a Vice Chairman." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000095012306007831/y22438exv99w1.htm [^6]: Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, "Divestiture of Stock and Purchase of Government Bonds by an Incoming Secretary of the Treasury," memorandum opinion for the General Counsel, Office of Government Ethics, June 22, 2006. https://www.justice.gov/opinion/file/786181/dl [^7]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form S-3ASR prospectus relating to 3,230,024 shares offered by the selling shareholder Henry M. Paulson, Jr., filed June 29, 2006, "Selling Shareholder." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000886982/000095012306008368/y22661srsv3asr.htm [^8]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Henry M. Paulson, Jr. (2006 - 2009)," Prior Secretaries, history pages. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/henry-m-paulson-jr-2006-2009 [^9]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Steven T. Mnuchin (2017 - 2021)," Prior Secretaries, history pages. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/steven-t-mnuchin-2017-2021 [^10]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 6, 2009, director biographies ("Stephen Friedman, Director since April 2005"), director independence discussion and "Certain Relationships and Related Transactions." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312509073816/ddef14a.htm [^11]: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, press release "Stephen Friedman Resigns as Chairman of the New York Fed's Board of Directors," May 7, 2009. https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/aboutthefed/2009/oa090507.html [^12]: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, press release "New York Fed Names William C. Dudley President," January 27, 2009. https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/aboutthefed/2009/oa090127 [^13]: Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "Chairman Gary Gensler," former commissioners page. https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/FormerCommissioners/ggensler.html [^14]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed December 15, 2016, Item 5.02. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312516794516/d290095d8k.htm [^15]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed January 24, 2017, Item 5.02(e). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312517016853/d294950d8k.htm [^16]: Gretchen Morgenson and Don Van Natta Jr., "Paulson's Calls to Goldman Tested Ethics," *The New York Times*, August 9, 2009, as published by CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2009/08/09/paulsons-calls-to-goldman-tested-ethics.html [^17]: Nomi Prins, "Paulson's Revealing Phone Records," *The Daily Beast*, October 12, 2009. https://www.thedailybeast.com/paulsons-revealing-phone-records/ [^18]: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, press release "Board approves, pending a statutory five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies," September 21, 2008. https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20080921a.htm [^19]: *United States v. Gupta*, 747 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. 2014), paragraphs 5 to 14 and 28. https://openjurist.org/747/f3d/111/united-states-v-gupta [^20]: U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, *Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse*, Majority and Minority Staff Report, April 13, 2011, Executive Summary, pp. 9 to 11, and Goldman Sachs case study (Timberwolf). https://archive.org/details/355839-wall-street-and-the-financial-crisis-apr-2011 [^21]: *Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: The Role of Investment Banks*, hearing before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, S. Hrg. 111-674, April 27, 2010 (witness list; prepared statement and testimony of Lloyd C. Blankfein, p. 130 and following). https://archive.org/details/gov.gpo.fdsys.CHRG-111shrg57322 [^22]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 21489, "Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre," April 16, 2010, *SEC v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre*, 10 Civ. 3229 (S.D.N.Y.). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21489.htm [^23]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, press release 2010-123, "Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO," July 15, 2010. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm [^24]: *SEC v. Fabrice Tourre*, 10 Civ. 3229 (KBF) (S.D.N.Y.), Document 5198, Final Judgment as to Defendant Fabrice Tourre, filed March 27, 2014 (the copy at the cited address is captioned "[Proposed] Final Judgment"). https://www.sec.gov/files/Judg10-cv-03229Tourre.pdf [^25]: David Ingram, Reuters, "Feds won't charge Goldman for infamous trades," NBC News, August 9, 2012, quoting the Justice Department statement. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/feds-wont-charge-goldman-infamous-trades-flna933554 [^26]: Statement of Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, January 27, 2010, concerning SIGTARP's audit "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties" (November 17, 2009). https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20100127barofsky.pdf [^27]: Chris Seefer and Carl McCarden, memorandum to all Commissioners, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, "Goldman Sachs Exposure to AIG from Transactions Excluded from Maiden Lane III and Collateral Posting Agreements with AIG and Other Counterparties," draft, September 17, 2010, pp. 1 to 3. https://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-docs/2010-09-17_FCIC_Staff_Memo_re_Goldman_Sachs_Exposure_to_AIG.pdf [^28]: "Section of SIGTARP Report Related to Goldman Sachs," November 17, 2009, as published by Goldman Sachs (including note 24 of the report). https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/announcements/2009/sigtarp [^29]: *The Libyan Investment Authority v Goldman Sachs International* [2016] EWHC 2530 (Ch), case HC-2014-000197, judgment of Mrs Justice Rose, October 14, 2016, paragraphs 1 to 12 (introduction), the sections on the Haitem Zarti internship, on missing witnesses and on the Société Générale proceedings, and section XI (conclusions). https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2016/2530.html [^30]: U.S. Senate lobbying disclosure database, filings with client names containing "Goldman," filing years 2009 and 2010; totals computed by summing the latest-posted filing for each client name, registrant and period. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=goldman&filing_year=2010 [^31]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, committee C00350744, totals by cycle. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00350744/totals/ [^32]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, schedule A contributions by employer, committee C00431445 (Obama for America), two-year period 2008; employer names as reported in the filings. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/by_employer/?committee_id=C00431445&cycle=2008 [^33]: Henry Richards, "How Goldman Sachs helped mask Greece's debt," The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, February 21, 2012. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2012-02-21/how-goldman-sachs-helped-mask-greeces-debt [^34]: "Robert Maxwell's Expectations Gap: Regulation and Reputation in the British Communications Industry, 1981-91," Case Study #29, Global Capitalism Project, University of Oxford, February 2023, quoting the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors' report. https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/files/case29-robertmaxwellsexpectationsgappdf [^35]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, *In the Matter of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.*, Release No. 90243, Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-20132, October 22, 2020, paragraphs 1 to 14, 20 to 46 and 54 to 55; see also press release 2020-265. https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2020/34-90243.pdf [^36]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed October 22, 2020, Exhibit 99.1, "Statement from the Board of Directors." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312520274226/d73654dex991.htm [^37]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed January 26, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312521017826/d112881d8k.htm [^38]: Nina Pullano, "Goldman Sachs banker gets two years for international bribery scheme," Courthouse News Service, May 29, 2025. https://www.courthousenews.com/goldman-sachs-banker-gets-two-years-for-international-bribery-scheme/ [^39]: Jacob Rosen and Faris Tanyos, "Kathryn Ruemmler resigning as Goldman Sachs' general counsel after her appearances in the Epstein files," CBS News, February 12, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathryn-ruemmler-resigning-from-goldman-sachs-epstein-files/ [^40]: Email, Kathy Ruemmler to jeevacation@gmail.com, December 20, 2017, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein library, EFTA02611782 (DataSet 11). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02611782.pdf [^41]: Email, Lesley Groff to Jeffrey Epstein, May 12, 2014, "Reminder: Possible Dinner Party Mon. May 19th?", U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein library, EFTA01924576 (DataSet 10); the list also appears in EFTA00284908 (DataSet 9). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01924576.pdf