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Goldman Sachs agrees to a $1.2 billion mortgage settlement with a US agency, thus averting a trial scheduled for September 29.

On Friday, Goldman Sachs and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) agreed on a settlement. The latter amounts to $1.2 billion and concerns the regulator’s claim the bank sold faulty mortgage bonds to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The FHFA is the conservator for the aforementioned mortgage finance companies controlled by the US government. Goldman Sachs, according to the settlement, consented to the payment of $3.15 billion, repurchasing mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.The FHFA established the settlement value to be $1.2 billion, which Goldman Sachs is to pay, after the currently estimated value of the purchased back securities from Mae and Mac is subtracted.

The agreement averted an upcoming September 29 trial, in a succession of lawsuits against Goldman Sachs, filed by FHFA in 2011. These lawsuits aim to recover damages from diverse financial institutions amounting to around $200 billionin mortgage bonds purchased by Mae and Mac.

Out of the 18 lawsuits filed, FHFA has resolved 15, and has managed to recover $17.3 billion from banks like Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s first case involving Goldman Sachs claimed the bank misled the two large mortgage finance companies by selling them more than $11.1 billion in mortgage-backed securities in the period 2005 through 2007.Goldman Sachs denied both allegations and any wrongdoings.

The settlement obligatesitto pay around $1 billion to Fannie Mae and $2.15 billion to Freddie Mac. Goldman Sachs said the costs were covered from its litigation reserves for the second quarter of the year.

The dealtopped a previous $550 million settlement between Goldman Sachs and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In this case, the settlement resolved charges on the way the bank marketed its subprime mortgage product in 2010.

The US Department of Justice’sinvestigation over Goldman Sachs’ marketing of mortgage-backed securities is still on. The Justice Department announced the reaching of a settlement with Bank of America, at $16.65 billion, on mortgage securities.

The FHFA litigations against three more banks: HSBC, Nomura Holdings and Royal Bank of Scotland, are still held. For HSBC, the trial is on September 29; for Nomura on January 26.