Jack Dorsey's Block agrees to pay $764M to settle DOJ AML probe

Block, the payments company run by Jack Dorsey, has agreed in principle to pay $764 million to settle a US Department of Justice investigation into its anti-money laundering controls. The company disclosed the tentative deal in an SEC filing, according to Cointelegraph. It isn't finished business yet — a final agreement and a court's approval both still stand in the way.

The price tag is the story: $764 million, agreed in principle. The phrasing matters, because an in-principle deal is a handshake, not a signature, and terms can still shift before anything is locked down. The DOJ probe zeroed in on Block's anti-money laundering controls — the safeguards financial firms are supposed to use to keep dirty money out of their pipes.

Block, once known as Square, sits behind both a merchant payments empire and the consumer app Cash App. That reach makes AML compliance a heavy lift and an even heavier liability when regulators come knocking. A nine-figure settlement is the kind of number that lands squarely on the balance sheet and in the next earnings conversation.

So what happens now? Block and the DOJ have to convert the handshake into a formal agreement, then hand it to a judge for approval. Until that rubber stamp lands, the $764 million is a pledge — not a payment.