Search Results for: JPMorgan

By Pam Martens: February 6, 2014 Some of the Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee sounded more like Wall Street lobbyists than legislators yesterday as they whined and moaned about the Volcker Rule, a provision of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; financial reform legislation that was enacted into law in 2010 by a duly held vote of their august body following the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. The Volcker Rule bans proprietary trading – trading for the house – unless it is a legitimate market making activity or a specifically aligned hedge. While Wall Street On Parade is no fan of the revolving door executives at some of the key regulators, it has to be said that the patience exhibited by the regulators yesterday to suffer fools on this Congressional panel was, at least, a testament to their professionalism when appearing before the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: January 13, 2014 Last week JPMorgan Chase paid $2.6 billion in fines and restitution, signed a deferred prosecution agreement and walked away from their 22-year involvement with Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. But according to court documents filed in 2011 by the Trustee of the Madoff victims’ fund, Irving Picard, this was not a simple case of poor risk management at JPMorgan. This was an operation structured like those Russian nesting dolls, with the Ponzi scheme as the outside doll with many more frauds layered inside the big one. After reading the documents released by the Justice Department in connection with the settlement, the Los Angeles Times asked in a photo caption of a smirking Madoff outside of Federal Court: “Bernie Madoff: Was he part of the JPMorgan ring, or was JPMorgan part of his ring?” The New York Times had a far more charitable stance, with Floyd … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: December 31, 2013 Since December 16, major business media have failed to dig deeper into a potentially blockbuster story involving the Justice Department’s refusal to honor a Wall Street regulator’s request for a subpoena against JPMorgan Chase to obtain Madoff related documents the firm was refusing to turn over. JPMorgan Chase was Madoff’s banker for the last 22 years of his fraud. The Trustee in charge of recovering funds for Madoff’s victims, Irving Picard, said in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court this Fall that JPMorgan stood “at the very center of Madoff’s fraud for over 20 years.” It’s a big story when a serial miscreant like JPMorgan – which has promised its regulators to change its jaded ways in exchange for settlements – risks obstruction of justice charges by denying one of its key regulators internal documents. It becomes an explosive story when the Justice … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: December 12, 2013 This month marks the fifth anniversary of Bernard Madoff shocking the world by confessing to running a Ponzi scheme that was eventually tallied up to represent $17 billion in actual losses and $65 billion in paper losses – fictitious amounts shown on customer statements. It may also mark another ignoble first – the first time a Wall Street bank is criminally charged by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Trustee in charge of recovering funds for victims of Madoff’s decades-long Ponzi scheme, Irving Picard, may have forced the hand of the U.S. Department of Justice to bring criminal charges against JPMorgan Chase for the banks’ enablement of the fraud. The New York Times is reporting on its front page today that criminal charges against JPMorgan and a deferred prosecution agreement related to its actions in the Madoff case may be announced before the end … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: December 4, 2013 Gary Gensler, the outgoing Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, previously testified to Congress that he began investigating allegations that a global banking cartel was rigging the international interest rate benchmark known as Libor in the spring of 2008. One can prudently assume that around the same time, he made the issue known to the U.S. Department of Justice.  It’s now almost six years later and yet two of the U.S. banks involved in the cartel, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, have yet to be charged by U.S. authorities. Today, JPMorgan and Citigroup have admitted participating in the Yen Libor financial derivatives cartel to the European Commission and accepted fines of €79.8m ($108.3 million) and €70m ($95 million), respectively. Citigroup avoided paying an additional €55m ($74.6 million) by being granted full immunity for one of its three charged infringements, ostensibly for its cooperation in … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 19, 2013 This morning’s Wall Street Journal headline reads: “J.P. Morgan, U.S. Reach Historic Settlement.” Call me old fashioned, but when I think of the word “historic,” it invariably conjures up good things: the August 18, 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment giving American women the right to vote – a scant 144 years after the Nation’s founding. Historic is also appropriate to describe the November 4, 2008 Presidential election where Barack Obama became the first African American to secure the Presidential nomination of a major political party and the first to win the Presidential post – a mere 232 years after our great democracy was founded. A Wall Street firm throwing billions at its regulators to preempt its executives going to jail is anything but “historic.” It’s now the rubric on Wall Street and in Washington. The model is so revolting that a sitting Federal … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 18, 2013 Last week was a lesson in obscene wealth breeding abject stupidity. The brands of JPMorgan Chase and Bloomberg News took a self-inflicted beating from preposterously dumb ideas from top management. In both instances, the companies reflected a haughty contempt and insular assessment of public sensibilities. Congress has spent the better part of the year worrying about too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to prosecute mega banks on Wall Street. JPMorgan seemed to prove last week that these behemoths are even too big to think rationally. In the midst of eight high profile criminal or civil investigations by the U.S. Justice Department involving the fleecing of the little guy’s pocket, JPMorgan decided to effectively take the pulse beat of public sentiment toward its brand. It decided to do this not in a closed-door focus group but in the most public … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 4, 2013 Nothing reveals the incestuous, one-percent-mindset that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have with Wall Street than the next to last photo at this link. The photo shows an employee of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s number one target for financial fraud investigations, JPMorgan Chase, working inside a high security spy center in Lower Manhattan to — wait for it — help the New York City Police Department catch crooks. While most law enforcement bodies around the U.S. would instantly weed out serial wrongdoers as job hires, Bloomberg and Kelly have created an art form out of joint policing ventures with Wall Street, operating both a rent-a-cop program with Wall Street as well as pumping at least $150 million of taxpayer money into the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center where Wall Street employees sit elbow to elbow with NYPD … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 29, 2013 There are five words that neatly sum up JPMorgan Chase’s dilemma in its efforts to avoid a deferred prosecution agreement or a more serious outcome over its handling of Bernard Madoff’s business account for more than two decades: the “Know Your Customer Rule” and recidivism. The Know Your Customer Rule is ingrained in every banker and broker on Wall Street by the legions of compliance officers who send out terrifying memorandums depicting recent examples in the news or the courts of what happens to unwitting financial reps who didn’t know their customers. The memos are backed up with equally terrifying compliance meetings and compliance handbooks that one must acknowledge receiving in writing. Some firms now require brokers to take computer-based continuing education classes which further enshrine the mandates of the Know Your Customer Rule. The object of this rule is to make the banker … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 28, 2013 Last week the business press reported that the U.S. Department of Justice may assert charges against JPMorgan Chase for its role in perpetuating the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme which defrauded investors out of $17 billion in actual funds and $64 billion in paper losses based on the falsified values shown on client statements. Unnamed sources said the Justice Department may agree to a deferred prosecution agreement in exchange for an outside monitor or, in the alternative, charge JPMorgan’s banking division with violations of the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to report its Madoff suspicions to Federal authorities. Interestingly, JPMorgan did report its suspicions to a government regulator – in the United Kingdom, not in the U.S. Such a development would also raise serious new questions about how the Board of Trustees of NYU handles conflicts of interest. The Board is already under withering criticism … Continue reading →