Bank of America (BAC) agreed to pay $72.5 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by women who accused the bank of facilitating their sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein, court records showed on Friday.
Lawyers for the bank and the women had told Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff this month they had reached a "settlement in principle."
The plaintiffs' lawyers may seek up to 30% of the settlement, or about $21.8 million, for legal fees, according to court records.
The proposed class action, filed in October by a woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe, accused the second-largest U.S. bank of ignoring suspicious financial transactions related to Epstein despite a "plethora" of information about his crimes because it valued profit over protecting victims.
Bank of America has said Doe alleged merely that it provided routine services to people who at the time had no known links to Epstein, and that any suggestion that it was more deeply involved was "threadbare and meritless."