Credit Kathy Willens/Associated Press
A Louisiana man who helped federal prosecutors make their case against JPMorgan Chase’s mortgage lending practices has earned $63.9 million for his efforts.
The government will pay the amount to Keith Edwards, the whistle-blower who originally sued the bank last year, according to a filing in a United States District Court in Manhattan on Friday.
Last month, the bank agreed to pay $614 million to settle charges that it violated rules at the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which insure mortgages made by lenders. The bulk of the settlement, $564.6 million, went to the F.H.A.
Mr. Edwards will receive $56.46 million from the F.H.A. and the remainder from the settlement reached in the Veterans Affairs case.
Mr. Edwards worked for JPMorgan from 2003 to 2008, according to court filings. He helped oversee JPMorgan’s government insurance unit as it related to residential lending, and said that the bank pushed defective loans onto the two agencies.
He sued the bank in January of last year under the False Claims Act, a law that aims to encourage whistle-blowers to come forward by paying a portion of whatever money the government gets.
“Keith’s a courageous guy,” his lawyer, David Wasinger, said on Friday. “He wanted to step forward and do the right thing.”
In 2012, a former UBS banker received $104 million from the Internal Revenue Service for providing information about how the Swiss bank pushed American citizens to avoid taxes. The award was the largest the I.R.S. had ever paid as part of its whistle-blower program.