Before Wells Fargo & Co. agreed Friday to pay $108 million to settle a federal whistleblower case stemming from mortgage refinancing fees illegally billed to the nation's veterans, the bank mounted “a Stalingrad defense,” fighting for five years after six co-defendant banks had paid $161.7 million, said whistleblower attorney James Butler Jr.

Faced with an August trial in federal court in Atlanta, Wells Fargo surrendered, settling the 11-year-old case with whistleblowers Victor Bibby and Brian Donnelly, both formerly executives at a now-defunct Atlanta mortgage company that specialized in arranging government-guaranteed loans to military veterans.

The case, filed in 2006, remained under seal for five years until federal prosecutors decided not to intervene. It was unsealed in 2011 when Butler and his firm, Butler Wooten & Peak, joined with Atlanta attorney Marlan Wilbanks of Wilbanks & Gouinlock to recoup for the government what they contended were hundreds of millions of dollars stemming from unauthorized legal fees the banks had hidden in mortgage refinance statements. Bibby and Donnelly claimed the banks had illegally added the unauthorized fees to veterans' mortgage refinance costs in violation of federal regulations. The federal government partially guaranteed the loans made by participating banks.