Search Results for: rap sheet

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 26, 2021 ~ JPMorgan Chase is unique among the mega banks on Wall Street – and not in a good way. It owns the largest federally-insured bank in the United States despite a rap sheet that would make the Gambino crime family jealous. It has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with five felony counts since 2014, admitting to all of them. Its Board of Directors has left the same man, Jamie Dimon, at the helm of the bank as Chairman and CEO, throughout those five felony counts. JPMorgan Chase is also the only American bank to ever be fined for using depositors’ money to gamble in derivatives in London and lose $6.2 billion of that money. (Jamie Dimon was Chairman and CEO at the bank then as well.) JPMorgan Chase is the only federally-insured bank in the United States to be … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 30, 2021 ~ The Swiss mega bank, Credit Suisse, lost $5.5 billion in late March and early April from the highly-leveraged, highly concentrated stock positions it was financing via tricked-up derivatives for Archegos Capital Management, the family office hedge fund of Sung Kook “Bill” Hwang. Archegos blew up on March 25 after it defaulted on its margin calls from its banks. U.S. mega banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, were also extending high levels of margin debt to Archegos at the time of its blowup, as were other foreign banks. Over $10 billion in total losses have thus far been acknowledged by the banks. To get out in front of an ongoing Department of Justice investigation of the matter, Credit Suisse decided to hire the BigLaw firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison,  to conduct an investigation. Yesterday, Paul Weiss issued a 165-page report … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 23, 2021 ~ The unthinkable is happening with alarming regularity at the Frankenbank JPMorgan Chase. Over the last seven years, with Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon at the helm, JPMorgan Chase has managed to do what no other federally-insured American bank has managed to do in the history of banking in the United States. The bank has admitted to five separate felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, while regulators took no action to remove the Board of Directors or Jamie Dimon. Now, once again, the outrageous hubris of this Board is on display. Just last fall the bank forked over $920 million of shareholders money to settle its fourth and fifth felony counts brought by the Department of Justice, this time for rigging the precious metals and U.S. Treasury market. Now, in the dog days of summer, rarely a time for … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 15, 2021 ~ According to the Merger and Acquisition database at PitchBook, entities tied to JPMorgan Asset Management have been buying up energy and infrastructure assets around the world including solar power plants, wind farms,  airports, water companies and the 120-year old El Paso Electric which provides electricity to approximately 437,000 retail and wholesale customers in west Texas and southern New Mexico. The acquisitions can be traced back to an entity called the Infrastructure Investments Fund (IIF). When IIF is seeking regulatory approval, as in the case of buying El Paso Electric, it contends it is not controlled by JPMorgan. But when JPMorgan is pitching the fund to institutional investors around the globe, the bank points out that 50 of the bank’s employees are actively engaged in the fund – along with “70 independent portfolio company directors.” The brochures (flipbooks) for IIF are marked … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 16, 2021 ~ Corporate media outlets like Bloomberg News, the CBS news program 60 Minutes, and CNBC have been seduced into obsequious behavior when it comes to Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, despite the fact that Dimon has presided over the most unparalleled crime spree in the history of U.S. banking. Between 2014 and September of last year, JPMorgan Chase has been charged with five criminal felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice. The bank admitted to all five counts. (See the bank’s detailed rap sheet here.) Despite this crime spree and endless probation periods followed by more crime, Dimon has further seduced federal bank regulators into allowing his unrepentant behemoth to become the most systemically risky bank in America. That assessment is not our opinion. It is the assessment of the federal government based on hard data. The … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 27, 2021 ~ Senator Sherrod Brown opened yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing with some fiery words about the mega banks on Wall Street, stating: “Like most Americans, I want businesses to make money, and I don’t mind that bankers are rich. Some people are going to be wealthy, and that’s fine. Here’s the problem: under the current system, Wall Street profits no matter what happens to workers, because those profits now come at the expense of workers. And your banks are the ones that largely built that system. “We often hear about the ‘invisible hand.’ But the economy isn’t physics – it’s not governed by scientific laws outside our control. It’s made up of people making choices about our values and the society we want to live in. The ‘invisible hand’ doesn’t lay off workers. The ‘invisible hand’ didn’t invent credit default swaps. The … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 26, 2021 ~ Below are selected remarks from Jamie Dimon’s prepared statement for the Senate Banking Committee hearing today, which will take testimony from a total of six Wall Street bank CEOs. Wall Street On Parade’s annotated remarks appear in brackets and italics. ~~~ “Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey and distinguished members of the Committee, I appreciate the invitation to appear before you to talk about JPMorgan Chase, the strength and resilience of the U.S. financial system, and the people, businesses and communities we serve.” [The strength of the U.S. financial system would, of course, be a lot safer and sounder if the largest bank in the U.S., at which Dimon serves as Chairman and CEO, had not been charged with five felony counts since 2014, all occurring under his leadership. The bank admitted to all five counts.] “JPMorgan Chase is a global financial services firm … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 14, 2021 ~ Today is the 85th Day of the Joe Biden Presidency and his nominee to Chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, has yet to be confirmed by the full Senate. Apparently, the moneyed interests that control the corporate wing of the Republican party have put Senator Pat Toomey in charge of attempting to derail the nomination. A full Senate vote will take place on Gensler at 11:45 a.m. today, but that vote will be limited to Gensler serving out the balance of the term of Trump’s former SEC Chair Jay Clayton, which expires in – wait for it – 52 days. The Senate Banking Committee had cleared Gensler to not only fill Clayton’s remaining term but had also cleared his reappointment for a five-year term ending on June 5, 2026. That five-year term will not be voted on by the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 16, 2021 ~  Rewarding bad behavior with obscene pay is the sine qua non of Wall Street. Thus it’s a remarkable event to see a CEO of a mega Wall Street bank get punished with a 21 percent pay cut.  Michael Corbat is slated to retire this month as Citigroup’s CEO and be replaced by Jane Fraser, the first woman CEO of any major Wall Street bank. (The news would be more welcome if the areas that Fraser previously supervised at the bank did not have all those fines and sanctions.) The Board delivered an unusual kick in the pants to Corbat on his way out the door. It cut his compensation for 2020 by $5 million from what he had been awarded for 2019. Corbat’s total compensation went from $24 million in 2019 to $19 million for 2020. The announcement was made in … Continue reading →