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Diane Seol

Oversight and enforcement

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Oversight and enforcement
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The profile

District of Massachusetts attorney named on the Kabbage PPP False Claims Act resolution.

Identity and role

Diane C. Seol was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Massachusetts in May 2024. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston credited her, with Brian M. LaMacchia, chief of its Affirmative Civil Enforcement Unit, as handling the False Claims Act resolution with Kabbage. Her name is on the government's May 7, 2024 notice of election to intervene for settlement in United States ex rel. Berteletti v. Kabbage, Inc. (D. Mass. No. 1:20-cv-12114-GAO).

Biography / career arc

Our records on Seol are limited to the Kabbage court papers and the office's May 13, 2024 press release, which give her office and title but not her earlier career.

Pandemic-relief / PPP-EIDL role

Kabbage was a fintech PPP lender. In 2020 it approved more than $7 billion in PPP loans and was paid more than $217 million in processing fees, according to the government's later complaint against three of its former executives. Kabbage filed for Chapter 11 in the District of Delaware in October 2022 and was winding down as KServicing Wind Down Corp. when it settled.

The Massachusetts case began as a whistleblower suit, filed under seal on November 25, 2020. On May 7, 2024 the United States told Judge George A. O'Toole, Jr. that it would intervene only to settle with Kabbage, Inc., and the case was unsealed. The notice lists Seol and LaMacchia for the U.S. Attorney's Office and Sarah E. Loucks among the Civil Division attorneys.

The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the resolution on May 13, 2024. It is two settlements that together give the United States an allowed general unsecured claim in the bankruptcy of up to $120 million; the amount actually recovered depends on the estate's assets.

  • Up to $63.2 million resolves allegations that Kabbage systemically inflated tens of thousands of PPP loans. KServicing Wind Down Corp. admitted that Kabbage double-counted state and local taxes paid by employees in gross wages, failed to exclude annual compensation above $100,000 per employee, and miscalculated leave and severance payments. The government alleged Kabbage knew of the errors as early as April 2020. Kabbage received a $12.5 million credit for money it had already returned to the SBA.
  • Up to $56.7 million resolves allegations that Kabbage knowingly failed to maintain adequate fraud controls, including removing pre-PPP underwriting steps and setting substandard fraud-check thresholds, and submitted thousands of PPP applications that were fraudulent or highly suspicious. These are allegations, not admissions.

Their own relief

Neither the SBA's public PPP loan-level data (September 30, 2024 release) nor the USAspending COVID-EIDL award files we searched list a loan to a borrower named Diane Seol.

Seol is a government attorney, not a party. On July 16, 2024 Judge O'Toole dismissed the Massachusetts case: claims against Kabbage, Inc. for the conduct covered by the settlement were dismissed with prejudice as to the United States, all claims against Kabbage, Inc. were dismissed with prejudice as to the relator, and claims against Kabbage Payments LLC were dismissed without prejudice.

The separate Texas suit against former Kabbage executives Robert Frohwein, Kathryn Petralia and Spencer Robinson, which the United States joined in December 2024, is handled by Civil Division and Eastern District of Texas attorneys; the Justice Department's announcement does not name Seol.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The May 2024 court papers are our latest record of Seol. They list her as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at 1 Courthouse Way, Boston. We have no later record of her position.

Sources held in this archive

  • Who Got Paid
  • When the Guaranty Fee Ran Backwards

Sources

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