NEW YORK, July 9 (UPI) -- Citigroup is expected to pay a $7 billion penalty for packaging bad mortgages in the run-up to the financial crisis, according to people close to the matter.
The Justice Department and Citigroup are expected to announce the deal sometime this week. Negotiations reached a dead end a few weeks ago when the Justice Department threatened to sue the bank if it did not agree with the government's proposal. At one point in the talks the government was asking Citigroup to pay $10 billion, much more than what Wall Street analysts had estimated.