Accounting giant, mortgage company lawyers reach settlement

Lawyers for accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers and a defunct mortgage company's creditors and investors have reached a settlement in a lawsuit involving audits at a failed Alabama bank.

Attorneys from both sides confirmed via email Friday that the case involving the $5 billion lawsuit was settled "to the mutual satisfaction of the parties."

The case went to trial in Miami earlier this month and was expected to last six weeks.

The lawsuit claimed PricewaterhouseCoopers should have detected massive fraud at Colonial Bank of Montgomery, Alabama. It claimed the estimated $21 billion fraud was orchestrated by top executives at the shuttered mortgage firm Taylor, Bean and Whitaker of Ocala, Florida.

Six Taylor Bean senior executives and two Colonial employees were convicted of federal fraud crimes and sent to prison. Colonial was shut down in 2009.