Regions Financial agreed to pay about $4.9 million as part of a Department of Justice settlement tied to claims the Birmingham, Ala., bank received government payments related to a Paycheck Protection Program loan that it shouldn’t have.
The DoJ had alleged that the $161 billion-asset Regions approved forgiveness of a customer’s PPP loan in August 2021 even though the loan wasn’t eligible. The Justice Department claimed that the bank was “unjustly enriched” by the SBA payment it received when the loan was foregiven.
Though it disagreed with the claims, Regions said in a statement that it “settled with the goal of closing this chapter and moving on.”