It requires the bank to pay a $2.39 billion civil penalty and an additional $1.8 billion in relief to underwater homeowners and distressed borrowers, along with $875 million in other claims. "This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail," Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery said in a statement. The agreement, smaller than deals reached with several of Goldman's Wall Street counterparts, is the latest in a series of multibillion-dollar civil settlements arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure or found themselves jobless. Other banks that settled in the last two years include Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co.