Meta has agreed to pay as much as $18 billion to resolve a major legal dispute with US states over claims it failed to protect children and fostered social media addiction, marking one of the largest settlements ever reached by a single US company. According to filings submitted Wednesday, the company behind Facebook and Instagram will pay $16.68 billion to settle claims brought by 47 states, the District of Columbia and three US territories. A separate $1 billion settlement with Texas brings the combined total to roughly $18 billion.
The agreement came just as the case was heading to trial in a California courtroom this month. Meta had previously projected that an unfavorable verdict could have cost the company hundreds of billions of dollars. The settlement, which still requires court approval, does not include any admission of wrongdoing by Meta and would be more than double the $7.4 billion settlement reached last year by Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family over claims tied to the opioid drug OxyContin.
Deutsche Bank AG's former head of private banking admitted in court to diverting more than €626,000 ($729,950) from wealthy clients across multiple transfers over a year and a half. The 39-year-old defendant, identified under German media law only as Sven R., appeared before a Frankfurt court accused of aggravated breach of trust. He exploited the bank's internal money-transfer procedures beginning in late 2023 until his scheme was discovered in the spring of 2025.
According to his testimony, he targeted accounts belonging to wealthier clients, including millionaires, on the assumption that the missing sums would seem small enough to go unnoticed. Initial transfers ranged from €50,000 to €81,500, with later withdrawals of smaller amounts, including €2,500 taken from an estate. Around half a dozen customers were affected. When some clients noticed discrepancies, he returned the funds and attributed the shortfalls to internal errors, using money taken from other customers to cover the gaps until, by his own account, he lost track of the scheme. Deutsche Bank said it regretted the incident, which occurred at its Frankfurt branch and involved a single employee who has since been dismissed. The bank confirmed all affected customers were notified and compensated.