Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the financial institution of overstating how a lot progress it had made in fixing the illegal practices that regulators stated had damage tens of millions of consumers.

The settlement, detailed in courtroom filings on Monday, is the newest in a succession of settlements and penalties the financial institution has paid stemming from a large fraud that got here to gentle almost a decade in the past. From 2002 to 2016, financial institution workers, going through unrealistic gross sales objectives imposed by their bosses, opened tens of millions of accounts in clients’ names with out their data.

Wells Fargo eliminated high executives and pledged to regulators that it could repair the interior deficiencies that brought about the scandal and different practices that put clients in danger.

The newest settlement resolves a lawsuit introduced on behalf of shareholders that targeted on the financial institution’s conduct between 2018 to 2020, after regulators recognized lots of the issues. The plaintiffs, together with pension funds in Mississippi, Rhode Island and Louisiana, stated Wells Fargo defrauded buyers by giving the misunderstanding that it was additional alongside within the technique of tackling regulators’ orders than it had disclosed on the time. The settlement, which have to be permitted by a federal decide in New York, was reported earlier by The Wall Avenue Journal.

Wells Fargo, which couldn’t be instantly reached for remark, has stated that it’s working to deal with issues which have led to the lawsuits and regulatory penalties.

Controversies have engulfed Wells Fargo for years, together with sham accounts, improper mortgage modifications and unintentional releases of shopper information.

In December, the financial institution agreed to pay $3.7 billion to settle claims by the Client Monetary Safety Bureau that it engaged in an array of banking violations. Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3 billion in 2020 to settle investigations into client abuses that lasted for greater than a decade.

Twice within the final seven years, the financial institution’s chief government has been ousted: John G. Stumpf in 2016, and Timothy Sloan in 2019. A high government, Carrie L. Tolstedt, pleaded responsible in March to a felony cost linked to the sham accounts scandal and faces as much as 16 months in jail.