MONTREAL – A little old lady takes on the RBC lion.

And the little old lady wins.

With a payment of $17 million, the Royal Bank of Canada has agreed to settle the Earl Jones case – and thus avoid a trial in a class-action lawsuit by the victims of the convicted scam artist.

The offer has been accepted by the victims, the vast majority of whom are seniors.

The offer, first made in October, was signed Monday at 1 p.m., said Kevin Curran, a member of the victims' group.

A Quebec Superior Court hearing on the matter is to be held March 14. The settlement amount will not be finalized until court approval has been obtained.

The bank's successful offer was up from its previous offer of $12.5 million.

The victims had rejected that lesser sum in July.

As agreed when the law firm of Stein and Stein took on the challenge, the lawyers' cut of the proceeds will be 25 per cent, leaving about $12 million for the claimants.

There was a substantial discrepancy between what the bank's accountants evaluated as the victims' losses – around $24 million – and what the victims' accountancy firm estimated, $36 million.

The agreement sets the stage for another long, drawn-out process – that of settling the capital-loss claims for the more than 100 victims.

They had entrusted their life savings, estates and inheritances to Jones, only to see their money vanish into the Ponzi scheme that paid for four homes and the high-flying lifestyle which Jones and his family long enjoyed.

Jones is currently residing in Room L-105 of the Ste. Anne des Plaines prison.

Convicted for theft and fraud, he was sentenced to an 11-year term in February 2010.

In a three-paragraph prepared statement issued at 8:36 a.m. Tuesday, the Royal said:

"RBC has closely examined its role in providing Earl Jones with a bank account and is satisfied that it was not negligent.

"The proposed settlement amount of $17 million is the result of many months of discussion between RBC and the class-plaintiffs," the bank added, "and seeks to address some of the financial difficulties the class-plaintiffs faced as a result of entrusting Mr. Jones with their financial affairs."

The capital-loss claims are anything but straight-forward, with forensic accountants wading through obstacles such as fictional interest, fake loans and inflated mortgages.

A victim who believed he or she lost $500,000 may be surprised to find the amount is much less, once all the made-up interest added over the years has been accounted for.

The initial claim in the class-action suit was $40 million, for alleged negligence by the Royal in handling the huge slush account that Jones long maintained at the RBC branch in Beaconsfield.

Lawyers for the victims came across an internal message from a bank employee sent in 2001 that had warned that Jones was using a large business account at the branch improperly.

He was only made to change the account in 2008.

The web of financial fraud came to light after cheques started bouncing in June 2009.

Jones was arrested that July.

The men and women who lost their money when Jones pillaged their accounts are fighters – as they have proven during the past three years.

They took on the government, the tax department and finally the bank where Jones perpetrated his scam.

They urged and prodded politicians to change the rules on sentencing and parole for white-collar criminals and were behind federal Bill C-59 when it passed in March 2011.

They challenged Canada Revenue Agency to refund the taxes they had paid on fictional interest over the years, and won.

They held rallies outside the Montreal courthouse and the Beaconsfield RBC branch, rode a bus to RBC headquarters in Toronto in December 2010 and took their horror story national.

The tenacious victims of Earl Jones said they weren’t going away.

And they didn’t.

Four of them have died since the house of cards came tumbling down.

Two have dementia so severe that they don’t know they have won the settlement.

“The shadow of the Earl Jones fraud and the Royal Bank negligence is long, and it will never end,” said Curran.

He has worked with the victims - including his mother - for three years.

asutherland@montrealgazette.com