JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank settle with Epstein victims
Two of the world's largest banks agree to pay Epstein's victims a combined $365 million — JPMorgan Chase $290 million and Deutsche Bank $75 million — to resolve claims that they enabled and profited from his trafficking by keeping him as a client despite obvious red flags.
In 2023, the financial institutions that had handled Jeffrey Epstein’s money for decades faced their own reckoning. Lawyers for Epstein’s victims, joined by the U.S. Virgin Islands, argued that major banks had ignored years of warning signs — large structured cash withdrawals, payments to young women, and Epstein’s 2008 sex-offender conviction — because his accounts and referrals were lucrative.
Deutsche Bank — $75 Million
In May 2023, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $75 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging it had enabled and benefited from Epstein’s trafficking during the years it banked him, from 2013 to 2018. The bank had previously been fined $150 million by New York regulators in 2020 for compliance failures tied to the Epstein relationship. A federal judge granted final approval of the settlement in October 2023.
JPMorgan Chase — $290 Million
In June 2023, JPMorgan Chase agreed to a $290 million settlement with a class of Epstein’s victims, the largest such payout to that point. JPMorgan had kept Epstein as a client from 1998 until 2013, closing his accounts five years after his Florida conviction. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff granted final approval of the settlement later that year. In a separate action, JPMorgan paid the U.S. Virgin Islands an additional $75 million in September 2023 to resolve claims that it facilitated Epstein’s operation in the territory.
The Staley Question
Much of the litigation focused on Jes Staley, the former JPMorgan executive who managed Epstein’s relationship with the bank and exchanged thousands of emails with him. JPMorgan sued Staley to claw back compensation, alleging he had concealed what he knew about Epstein’s conduct. Staley was later banned from senior roles in the U.K. financial industry over his characterization of the relationship.
The settlements — together roughly $365 million — established that the institutions surrounding Epstein bore civil liability for sustaining him. The pattern would repeat in 2026, when Bank of America settled a similar suit. The contrast with the criminal side grew only sharper: banks paid hundreds of millions to victims even as federal prosecutors charged no new individuals in the trafficking network.