So Goldman Sachs is about to pay a hair under $2 billion and have some unimportant Asian subsidiary plead guilty to helping bilk Malaysia out of $6.5 billion, to get the Justice Department to shut up about the whole thing. Talks with the Malaysians are not going quite as well, what with their seeing $2 billion as a starting point for talks about the interest Goldman should have to pay, before getting into the meat of the matter.
“There is still a Pacific Ocean gulf between Malaysia and Goldman Sachs,” he said. “But as far as we’re concerned, the door to settlement is always open. They know where we are, they can come and see us if they want to find us….”
Malaysia will seek compensation from Goldman Sachs that includes the $6.5 billion value of bonds the bank arranged for 1MDB, as well as interest. That totals $8 billion to $9 billion, he said.