New York Post

Cohn prevails in Sachs $tandoff

- Thornton McEnery

Gary Cohn would rather give millions to charity than let Goldman Sachs claw it back from his famously large hands.

The beefy Wall Street big, who spent nearly a decade as the No. 2 executive at Goldman, has spent nearly two months in a standoff over the bank’s reported demand that Cohn pay $10 million to make amends for Goldman’s role in the 1MDB Malaysian corruption scandal that led to $5 billion in fines.

But on Thursday, Cohn — who left the firm in early 2017 to do a 15-month stint as President Trump’s top economic adviser — said he will donate money to charity instead.

“As Goldman Sachs’ October statement on the 1MDBmatter said, noneof the past or current members of senior management were involved in any wrongdoing,” a Cohnspokes­person said in a text message to The Post.

“Mr. Cohn is a team player, and as a good corporate citizen, he volunteere­d many weeks ago to make a significan­t charitable contributi­on to Goldman Sachs-sponsored organizati­ons and looks forward to doing so.”

While the amount of the donation is not specific, two sources say that Cohn’s check is for “millions of dollars,” but short of the reported $10 million that Goldman had asked for.

While it might appear that Cohn is taunting his old firm, a company spokespers­on claims Goldman is happy enough with the outcome. Goldman’s clawback demand was actually something less than $10 million, a source close to the bank said.

“We are pleased that Gary has chosen to support charitable organizati­ons that are doing important work and put this matter behind us,” said a company spokespers­on in a statement.

Cohn’s spokespers­on insisted on Thursday that the offer to donate to charity was made many weeks ago. Last week, however, Cohn had said in an interview he was still having “very constructi­ve conversati­ons” with Goldman about the clawback.

Cohn’s former colleagues including Goldman CEO David Solomon and his predecesso­r Lloyd Blankfein had agreed immediatel­y to pay back their share of the $174 million that the bank’s board had demanded as a mea culpa for the Malaysian misadventu­re.

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