Regions Bank, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, has agreed to pay the United States $4,919,631 to resolve allegations that it improperly approved forgiveness for a Paycheck Protection Program loan that did not qualify under applicable federal rules, and then collected government payments it was not entitled to receive [1]. The Department of Justice announced the settlement on May 22, 2026 [1].
The case implicates the False Claims Act, the primary federal statute authorizing the government to recover treble damages and civil penalties when a party submits false or fraudulent claims for payment to the United States [1]. The PPP, created under the CARES Act in 2020, authorized participating lenders to approve and process loans on behalf of the Small Business Administration, and permitted lenders to submit forgiveness applications to the SBA once borrowers met statutory and regulatory criteria [1]. When a lender certified forgiveness for an ineligible loan and the SBA paid the claim, the government's position is that the lender bore responsibility for any resulting overpayment. The DOJ's continued pursuit of lender-side PPP enforcement reflects that institutional actors, not only borrowers, face liability exposure for improper forgiveness approvals [1].
Regions Bank is one of the largest regional financial institutions in the Southeast, with operations spanning 15 states [1]. The settlement does not constitute an admission of liability. No individual employees or officers were named as defendants in the publicly announced resolution [1]. The agreement resolves the civil allegations without proceeding to litigation, a posture consistent with prior DOJ False Claims Act settlements in the PPP enforcement space, where institutions have generally elected to resolve exposure before formal complaint filing [1].
The settlement signals continued DOJ focus on the lender side of PPP enforcement, a line of cases that has moved more slowly than borrower-side prosecutions but has produced several institutional resolutions since 2023 [1]. Regions Bank's payment closes this particular matter, but the DOJ's COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force remains active, and additional lender-side investigations are expected to produce further settlements or litigation through the False Claims Act's six-year statute of limitations window, which extends into the late 2020s for loans originated in 2020 [1].