Search Results for: Jamie Dimon

By Pam Martens: June 18, 2012 As you review the make up for the panels in these hearings, be sure to note that not one hearing has included representatives from the public or from consumer advocacy groups.  “Examining Bank Supervision and Risk Management in Light of JPMorgan Chase’s Trading Loss” House Financial Services Committee Tuesday, June 19  9:30 a.m.; 2128 Rayburn House Office Building  WITNESS LIST Panel I Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of the Currency Mary Schapiro, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Martin J. Gruenberg, Acting Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Scott Alvarez, General Counsel, Federal Reserve Board of Governors Panel II Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co.                                ~ “Market Structure – Ensuring Orderly, Efficient, Innovative and Competitive Markets for Issuers and Investors” House of Representatives Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 13, 2012 Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today that “there are no off-balance sheet vehicles…” But JPMorgan Chase’s financial filings with the SEC for 2011 tell a different story. Those documents state: “Includes off–balance sheet risk-weighted assets at December 31, 2011, of $301.1 billion, $291.0 billion and $38 million…for JPMorgan Chase, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Chase Bank USA, N.A., respectively.” Dimon was not asked to testify under oath today. In an exchange with Senator Bob Menendez, Dimon said he never criticized the new regulatory requirements for increased capital for banks. Senator Menendez said he did. Dimon said that was untrue. The Senator was referring to an interview Dimon gave to the Financial Times of London which was published on September 12, 2011. The Financial Times reported as follows: Dimon: “ ‘I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens, June 6, 2012 The U.S. Senate Banking Committee spent over two hours on Wednesday proving to the American people that any shred of confidence they might still have in our financial markets is misplaced. Just as with the six recent hearings on the collapse of MF Global and its $1.6 billion of missing customer funds, five different regulators could not, or would not, reveal anything useful to the American people on how JPMorgan, the largest bank by assets in the U.S., was permitted to blow up billions in depositor funds in an outpost in London.  Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) since April 9 of this year, did confirm one important detail during the hearing: the reckless derivative trading at JPMorgan’s London office occurred in a unit of the national bank (not the broker-dealer), using insured deposits of bank customers, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 4, 2012 James Giddens, the trustee overseeing the return of customer money at the failed commodities firm, MF Global, this morning filed a 275-page report with the court outlining the firm’s final days and its transformation under CEO Jon Corzine.  Read the full report here. In the report, the Trustee indicates a belief “that there are claims, including claims for breach of fiduciary duty and negligence, that may be asserted against Mr. Corzine, Mr. Steenkamp, and Ms. O’Brien, among others.”  Steenkamp was CFO and O’Brien, who took the Fifth before Congress, was an assistant treasurer involved in wiring customer funds to cover overdrafts at other units of the firm.  The trustee has previously stated that $1.6 billion in customer funds is missing.  Read a Wall Street On Parade report here. The trustee also indicated that he may be forced to litigate against JPMorgan Chase.  The report … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 22, 2012 If bank depositors were not sufficiently frightened to learn that JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, was using customers’ insured deposits as collateral to sell credit default insurance to hedge funds – the same dangerous derivatives maneuver that blew up AIG Financial Products and made the giant insurer a ward of the U.S. taxpayer – today’s U.S. Senate hearing added more reason for anxiety.  The hearing was convened from 10 a.m. to 12 noon by the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to hear from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Mary Schapiro and Gary Gensler, Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).  The two main regulators of the derivatives used by JPMorgan, that produced trading losses currently estimated by outside analysts at $3 billion to $5 billion, had to concede that they had no advance knowledge of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 18, 2012 On May 16, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing on “Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”  The hearing came less than a week after JPMorgan Chase announced it had lost at least $2 billion of insured deposits in a so-called hedging strategy it has yet to define.  (According to media reports today, that loss is now dramatically larger.)  Senator Richard Blumenthal is a member of the Judiciary Committee with an impressive resume as a former prosecutor, serving five terms as Connecticut’s Attorney General as well as a former U.S. Attorney for Connecticut.  When Senator Blumenthal’s turn came to question FBI Director Robert Mueller, the dialogue went as follows:  Senator Blumenthal: “I would like to ask first about the JPMorgan Chase investigation.  Can you tell us what potential crimes could be under investigation, without asking you to conclude anything or talk about … Continue reading →