Deutsche Bank employees may owe their cash bonuses for 2016, however modest, to a last-minute bargain by CEO John Cryan. The settlement enables DB to dodge a long and costly court fight, and it preserves needed cash.

Deutsche Bank had no desire for a drawn-out court fight. Around the same time prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Barclays on Thursday, Deutsche Bank’s lawyers said a holiday deal seemed possible.

Cryan pounced, according to someone close to the talks. The bank agreed to pay just $3.1 billion in cash to resolve the case and $4.1 billion in remediation to homeowners. It’s a victory for a firm that had faced an opening gambit from prosecutors of $14 billion, and for the CEO, who’s been hamstrung by myriad regulatory problems in the U.S. and abroad. The cash penalty is well within the range the bank had anticipated, easing concerns about capital pressure.

Resolution of the case before Dec. 31 may enable Deutsche Bank to set aside money for bonuses, a relief for a firm that has struggled to keep its best employees. In recent months, executives had contemplated replacing cash bonuses with stock.

Cryan, 56, still has other legal hurdles, including compliance lapses detailed in an internal report over so-called mirror trades that individuals used to move money out of Russia. In that matter, the bank also said Thursday there was no indication that it had violated sanctions, suggesting the possible punishment would also be manageable.