Jan 7 (Reuters) – A unit of KeyCorp will pay $7.77 million to resolve allegations it violated the federal False Claims Act by submitting fraudulent loans from the Paycheck Protection program for forgiveness, the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey said on Wednesday.
The settlement with KeyBank resolves claims related to a branch manager accused of recruiting business owners to submit loan applications that falsely represented their payroll expenses and how many people they employed.
KeyBank awarded the manager incentive pay for opening accounts for those owners prior to uncovering the scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)
