Goldman Sachs Group agreed to pay a fine of nearly $31 million ($27.1 million, another source says) to settle U.K. charges that it failed to make disclosures about trader Fabrice Tourre.  Under the agreement, Goldman will acknowledge an error in not informing U.K.'s main financial regulator that Mr. Tourre was under SEC scrutiny at the time that he moved to Goldman's U.K. subsidiary from New York in 2008.  This concession  - that it erred in its handling of Mr. Tourre's registration - is similar to the firm's July statement that it made "a mistake" by not disclosing the role of Paulson & Co. in the Abacus deal.

The fine would be one of the largest ever by the Financial Services Authority, or FSA, which has revved up its enforcement push after a long history of criticism as a weak-kneed regulator of City of London financial firms. In comparison, the agency announced in June a £33.3 million penalty against a J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. unit for failing to separate client money from the firm's accounts.

With Goldman, the FSA took the unusual step of publicly announcing an investigation of the company within days of the SEC's lawsuit, even though the Abacus deal was set up in the U.S.  The probe was launched under pressure from then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown shortly before U.K. elections in which he lost a re-election bid. [WSJournal, 9/9]