KPMG pays $224.5 million to settle Silicon Valley Bank auditor claims

KPMG LLP, the former outside auditor of Silicon Valley Bank, has agreed to pay $224.5 million to settle claims in the investor class action over the bank's March 2023 collapse. Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which runs Norway's sovereign wealth fund, announced the deal on Friday, November 6, in a press release titled "Settlement reached in Silicon Valley Bank investor class action case."

It is a settlement in principle, so it is not final. Bloomberg Law reports it needs court approval before it binds the parties, and NBIM's release says the same. The case continues against the other defendants.

What was announced

NBIM and Sweden's state pension fund AP7 are co-lead plaintiffs, acting for the whole class of SVB investors. NBIM says the settlement came after more than three years of litigation. CEO Nicolai Tangen called it "an important first step toward recovering investor losses."

KPMG said the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing and that it stands by its work, according to Reuters, as carried by MarketScreener. A KPMG US spokesperson described it as "a strategic decision to move forward as a business." Going Concern also reported the deal.

The numbers, and one misread to avoid

The $224.5 million goes to the class, not to the Norwegian fund. The chart above sets it beside the two lead plaintiffs' reported figures, which are only a yardstick. NBIM's stake in SVB was 1%, worth $137.9 million at the end of 2022, according to Reuters citing the fund's website. AI-CIO reported in December 2023 that the court named the two funds co-lead plaintiffs, with NBIM's losses at about $138.4 million and AP7's at about $23.5 million, nearly $162 million together. Those two funds are a small slice of everyone who held SVB stock during the class period, which the amended complaint put at January 21, 2021 to March 10, 2023, as CFO Dive reported. How the money is split, and what lawyers' fees take out, will be set in the approval process. We have not seen those terms, so read the headline figure as a total, not as a recovery rate.

What an auditor owes investors

An auditor does not run the bank or guarantee its health. It tests a company's financial statements and gives an opinion on whether they are fairly presented, and investors rely on that opinion when they buy stock. The legal question in cases like this is whether the audit was done to professional standards and whether the auditor's opinion misled people. The plaintiffs argued it did. KPMG said the opinion reflects the evidence available up to the date it was signed.

CFO Dive's account of the 2025 fight over dismissal shows where the dispute sat. Plaintiffs alleged KPMG gave SVB a "clean audit" days before it failed, and pointed to the bank's "held-to-maturity" label on securities, which they said led investors to believe the bank could hold them until they were repaid. A federal judge denied the motions to dismiss in June 2025, and KPMG asked the court to reconsider. KPMG countered that the last audit opinion the complaint relies on is dated March 1, 2022, more than a year before the March 10, 2023 closure, and that the fair value of those securities was disclosed in its 2020 and 2021 statements. The same report notes that SVB's 10-K, filed February 24, 2023, flagged credit losses and unfunded loan commitments as a critical audit matter. Because the case settled, none of these arguments was ever decided at trial.

Who else is in the case

The remaining defendants include former CEO Greg Becker, former CFO Daniel Beck and other officers and directors, plus the underwriters Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Securities, Morgan Stanley and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, per AI-CIO's 2023 list. The case sits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. We could not confirm from the settlement announcements which defendants are still active today, so that list reflects the case as reported earlier.

Why it matters

For auditors, a nine-figure payment from one of the Big Four firms, with no finding against it, is a reminder that audit opinions on banks can end in court even years after they are signed. For bank investors, it shows the route to recovery runs through years of class litigation. NBIM's own line is that investor confidence depends on being able to enforce rights.

Two things to watch: the court's decision on approving the deal, and whether the other defendants settle. Neither has a date in the sources we read. We have not yet seen the settlement papers, so every figure here comes from NBIM's release and the outlets linked above.

Sources: NBIM press releases; Bloomberg Law; Reuters via MarketScreener; Going Concern; CFO Dive; AI-CIO. This is news and context, not legal or investment advice.