“I just want (Executive A) to be constantly
aware of this growing plague,” one Wells Fargo
executive wrote in a 2004 email.
“Ms. Tolstedt acted appropriately and in good
faith at all times, and the effort to scapegoat her
is both unfair and unfounded,” said Enu Mainigi,
a lawyer for Tolstedt.
The settlement with the Department of Justice
covers Wells Fargo as a company, and the DOJ
could still go after individuals for violating
bank laws. The Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency, one of the nation’s bank regulators,
fined several of Wells’ former top executives
earlier this year for their role in the scandal.
Former CEO John G. Stumpf was fined $17.5
million and agreed to a lifetime ban from the
banking industry. The OCC sued Tolstedt for
$25 million for her role in the scandal, a suit that
Tolstedt’s lawyers have said they intend to fight.
Current Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf, who
started the job only a few months ago, has
staked his early reputation on resolving all of
the bank’s legal questions. He has been blunt in
saying that what the bank did under previous
management was unacceptable.
“The conduct at the core of today’s settlements
— and the past culture that gave rise to it — are
reprehensible and wholly inconsistent with the
values on which Wells Fargo was built,” Scharf in
a statement.
Despite Scharf ’s comments, Wells’ problems are
far from over.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo remains under
probation with the Federal Reserve, which has
restricted the bank’s ability to grow assets or