Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank agreed to buy back $10 billion in securities as part of the resolution of multistate litigation alleging they Deceived/Defrauded customers in the marketing and sale of auction rate securities. The announcement did not specify how much each company would buy back. Here we assume the total was divided evenly between them. They also agreed to pay civil penalties; for Goldman Sachs the amount was $22.5 million. For more info visit https://web.archive.org/web/20100215080410/http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2008/aug/aug21d_08.html