The U.S. Justice Department and JPMorgan Chase have struck a tentative $13 billion deal to settle investigations into bad mortgage loans the bank sold to investors in the lead-up to the financial crisis, a person close to the talks said Saturday.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Reuters via The Guardian:

The deal, which would be the largest ever between the US government and a single company, would not release the bank from criminal liability for some of the mortgages it packaged into bonds and sold to investors.

That had been a major sticking point in the discussions, but the government refused to budge and JPMorgan felt it had no choice but to give in, according to a second source. Until recently, the most that JPMorgan was willing to pay was closer to $11bn.

The biggest US bank sidestepped the worst of the financial crisis but now faces more than a dozen investigations globally into everything from alleged bribery in China to a possible role in manipulating benchmark interest rates known as Libor.

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