J.P. Morgan Securities - SEC charged the firm with misleading investors in a complex mortgage securities transaction just as the housing market was starting to plummet. J.P. Morgan agreed to pay $153.6 million in a settlement that enables harmed investors to receive all of their money back. (6/21/11)
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Tick tock
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
JPMorgan Chase Discusssing $11 Billion Settlement. DOJ DO NOT TAKE THIS.
JPMorgan Chase Discussing $11 Billion Settlement To End Crisis-Era Mortgage Probes
Posted: 09/25/2013 6:46 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- Federal and state authorities are discussing an $11 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase that would resolve numerous allegations of mortgage-related improprieties in the years before the financial crisis, according to people familiar with the ongoing negotiations.
The deal, if struck, would settle claims brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the New York attorney general and end at least three separate investigations by U.S. attorneys' offices in New York, California and Pennsylvania. The potential deal would involve a $7 billion cash payment and $4 billion in mortgage modifications for troubled borrowers.
The negotiations are “developing by the hour," one person familiar with the talks said. It’s possible no deal will be struck, or that it could be much more limited and resolve only one or a few of the various probes.
The bulk of the $7 billion cash payment being discussed would go to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giants regulated by FHFA. The agency, led by Edward DeMarco, claims Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were duped into buying junk mortgage-backed securities issued by JPMorgan and the financial companies it purchased in 2008, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.
FHFA filed its lawsuit against JPMorgan and separately sued more than a dozen other leading financial institutions in September 2011. The agency is trying to reclaim billions of dollars in losses sustained by the two mortgage giants, which were rescued by taxpayers at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.
The rest of the funds would be split between shoring up the Federal Housing Administration, which has claims against the bank for allegedly defrauding taxpayers on FHA loans; New York state; the U.S. government; and distressed homeowners, who could apply for mortgage assistance.
FHA, a government agency inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development that insures loans traditionally made to first-time home buyers and others unable to stump up big down payments, is likely to tap the U.S. Treasury for a bailout as a result of depleted reserves caused by soured loans.
JPMorgan has been resisting such a large payment, government officials said. But JPMorgan has an incentive to settle as many government probes as possible by Oct. 11, when the bank reports third-quarter earnings. Already, the bank has cautioned investors that it expects to incur a significant cost due to the various government-driven legal claims it faces.
Equity analysts who cover JPMorgan for investors have said the bank’s legal liability could depress its stock price and future earnings.
The various government entities also have an incentive to strike a mass settlement rather than file separate cases in court that could take years to resolve, particularly if the current settlement involves reduced payments or lowered loan balances for troubled borrowers.
Representatives for the Justice Department, FHFA, JPMorgan, and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman declined to comment.
JPMorgan faces a litany of accusations of mortgage-related misdeeds, according to its securities filings.
U.S. attorneys offices in California and Pennsylvania are investigating the bank’s allegedly misleading sales of mortgage-backed securities, according to securities filings and people familiar with the probes. In one case, federal prosecutors told JPMorgan in May that they had “preliminarily concluded” that the bank violated civil securities laws related to mortgage securities it packaged and sold from 2005 to 2007. A federal criminal investigation related to mortgage securities is pending.
Schneiderman last year sued the bank, alleging it misled investors when they purchased securities issued by Bear Stearns. Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has been probing the bank for possibly defrauding taxpayers on FHA loans, securities filings show.
In recent years, federal prosecutors and HUD have struck deals with Bank of America, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, the German lender, to resolve allegations they defrauded taxpayers on FHA loans.
The current round of talks centered on JPMorgan intensified in recent days after federal prosecutors notified the bank they planned to file a civil lawsuit. The talks are being led by the Obama administration’s Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, the formal name for the federal and state agencies with a stake in investigating mortgage securities-related wrongdoing.
The administration has faced criticism, particularly from federal lawmakers, over the apparent lack of cases it has brought against leading financial institutions for alleged wrongdoing committed in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
Defense lawyers that represent big banks have said in recent months that the Justice Department has ramped up its investigations into their clients.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Publisher said, "It's a Go" A LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE BANK
There is one thing I have learned over the past almost three years...
document...document...and document some more.
In grade school I wanted to be an artist, like my Grandfather. In middle school I wanted to be a Veterinarian and of course the shortest Olympic Volleyball player. In High School, I wanted to become a journalist and an Environmental Law Attorney.
There is a saying, God laughs as we make plans. If anyone would have told me that at thirty five years old, I would be writing a book about a love affair with a bank, I would have laughed. Then I would have said, who cares about a bank? Little did we know that the once "banking should be boring" mentality would all have escaped us come the "economic crisis" of 2008, and the scandals and crimes that followed.
There is something about time, and the more time passes, and the more I learn about the wonder that is JPMorgan Chase, the more I understand that they are criminals. Although, I have met some wonderful people, that I believe have tried to do their best, I believe that once the process began, it turned into a run away train. The lying and the mis-treatment never stopped, and I guess that is their retaliation for publicly protesting them on my property.
The ironic part of all of this is that I hate crowds, I don't like to be in a spot light, public speaking makes my knees shake uncontrollably! I'm just a normal, average gal, who now knows way too much about JPMorganChase, more than I ever wanted to know....
It's fall and instead of planting bulbs for next season I'm transcribing phone conversations...Really?
All I ever wanted was a chance to keep my home, a home that JPMorgan Chase now says, "You are not the owner of that property.." "....you cannot sell what doesn't belong to you..."
So, I will end with this funny story. It's hard to find any sense of normalcy during all of this, and I was talking with a great friend of mine while we were both doing the dishes after dinner about the goings on of a few of friends, so and so just had a baby, so and so just got engaged....and so and so are building their new home...etc. and I'm here what? "Having a Love Affair with JPMorganChase...for almost three years?"
There was the name of the novel, but we would have to take out JPMC, because they would probably sue for using their name, and of course would never give permission to use it, especially with all damning stories of their behavior, and the negligence, and just out right lies...
document...document...and document some more.
In grade school I wanted to be an artist, like my Grandfather. In middle school I wanted to be a Veterinarian and of course the shortest Olympic Volleyball player. In High School, I wanted to become a journalist and an Environmental Law Attorney.
There is a saying, God laughs as we make plans. If anyone would have told me that at thirty five years old, I would be writing a book about a love affair with a bank, I would have laughed. Then I would have said, who cares about a bank? Little did we know that the once "banking should be boring" mentality would all have escaped us come the "economic crisis" of 2008, and the scandals and crimes that followed.
There is something about time, and the more time passes, and the more I learn about the wonder that is JPMorgan Chase, the more I understand that they are criminals. Although, I have met some wonderful people, that I believe have tried to do their best, I believe that once the process began, it turned into a run away train. The lying and the mis-treatment never stopped, and I guess that is their retaliation for publicly protesting them on my property.
The ironic part of all of this is that I hate crowds, I don't like to be in a spot light, public speaking makes my knees shake uncontrollably! I'm just a normal, average gal, who now knows way too much about JPMorganChase, more than I ever wanted to know....
It's fall and instead of planting bulbs for next season I'm transcribing phone conversations...Really?
All I ever wanted was a chance to keep my home, a home that JPMorgan Chase now says, "You are not the owner of that property.." "....you cannot sell what doesn't belong to you..."
So, I will end with this funny story. It's hard to find any sense of normalcy during all of this, and I was talking with a great friend of mine while we were both doing the dishes after dinner about the goings on of a few of friends, so and so just had a baby, so and so just got engaged....and so and so are building their new home...etc. and I'm here what? "Having a Love Affair with JPMorganChase...for almost three years?"
There was the name of the novel, but we would have to take out JPMC, because they would probably sue for using their name, and of course would never give permission to use it, especially with all damning stories of their behavior, and the negligence, and just out right lies...
"A Love Affair With The Bank"
It's like a Chase employee said in the beginning of all of this, "they could have remedied all of this in the first thirty days, they had everything, you saw it, I saw it, but they would just rather continue to lie to you then have to work with you."
It's a shame really.
Games of Stupid. JPMC the Master.
this is today, and that is all.
This has become so entirely stupid, the only words coming out of my mouth are "what the Fu*$."
smh
Monday, September 23, 2013
JPMorgan Chase: "Incredibly Guilty"
Read more
An outside observer might be forgiven for thinking JPMorgan Chase isn't so much a bank as it is a criminal enterprise with a bank attached to it. Even before the London Whale scandal, Chase's documented list of crimes included repeated fraud, perjury, forgery, bribery, and violations of laws against trading with Iran and Syria.
It also shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Okay, that last statement isn't true. But the rest of the crimes on that list, and a number of others, are well-documented. And yet, remarkably, not a single senior executive at the bank has been indicted - or, to our knowledge, even been the subject of a criminal investigation.The bank just agreed to pay nearly a billion dollars in fines over the "Whale" case. And the SEC finally ending its practice of allowing criminal banks to "neither admit nor deny wrongdoing" when paying for their misdeeds. Chase admitted its guilt as part of the settlement.
In an even more dramatic break with recent practice, the Justice Department is pursuing criminal prosecutions in this case. But it's not clear that the indictments against two low-level employees will even lead to a trial.
We have written extensively about JPMorgan Chase's crime spree, but we have tried to be scrupulous about avoiding assumptions of guilt or innocence on the part of the bank's senior management. And in all fairness, the bank's leaders may not be involved in any criminal activity. They may simply be incompetent managers, incapable of ending criminal and reckless behavior among the employees for whom they are responsible. In that case the Board should step in and relieve them of a burden they're clearly incapable of carrying.
But fair is fair: At least theoretically, Chase's executives may be trying to run an honest bank. And Tony Soprano may just be running a waste management company. But our outside observer would also be forgiven for concluding that crime is part of Chase's business model.
Sound harsh? A report on JPM's lack of proper risk management controls, appropriately entitled "Out of Control," documented a list of crimes which, as David Dayen noted, "reads like a rap sheet." Dayen helpfully summarized the offenses documented in the report, and you're encouraged to read his list in full. Even this heavily abridged version will have you wondering why the police dispatcher hasn't sent officers to the scene:
"Bank Secrecy Act violations; money laundering for drug cartels; violations of sanction orders against Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor; executing fictitious trades where the customer ... was on both sides of the deal; misrepresentations of CDOs and mortgage-backed securities; violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act; fraudulent sale of unregistered securities; auto-finance deceptions; violations of state and federal ERISA laws; filing of unverified affidavits for credit card debt collections; energy market manipulation that triggered FERC lawsuits; "artificial market making" at Japanese affiliates; shifting trading losses on a currency trade to a customer account; fraudulent sales of derivatives to the city of Milan, Italy; and obstruction of justice (including refusing the release of documents in the Bernie Madoff case).""1-Adam 12. There are 487's and other violations in progress at 270 Park Avenue ..."
And the list excerpt above is by no means complete. It leaves out Chase's central role in bribing officials in Jefferson County, Alabama to rig municipal bonds, and overlooks the "Burger King kids" - college-age youngsters hired by the bank to mass-generate foreclosure filings (so named by fellow bank employees because of their propensity for eating take-out fast food while generating the court documents they reportedly falsified).
JPMorgan Chase was one of five banks which agreed to pay billions in fines to settle charges stemming from massive and systematic foreclosure fraud.
Twenty-four states have enacted some version of the "three strikes" rule, which requires a jail sentence for anyone convicted of a third felony. And yet, as this chart shows, JPMorgan Chase has committed a total of four violations on one count alone, "Purposeful or negligent fraud in interstate commerce," which violates section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933.
Connecticut's Office of Legal Research clearly summarizes the penalties which individual bankers may face for violating the Securities Act and its companion legislation, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934:
"Corporate directors, officers, and others who violate these laws are subject to criminal penalties, administrative fines, civil penalties, cease and desist orders, injunctions, disgorgement (an equitable remedy to provide restitution to defrauded members of the public), private lawsuits, and orders barring them from acting as officers or directors of public companies."Pop quiz: How many senior executives at JPMorgan Chase have faced criminal prosecution for the bank's serial crimes? How many have been personally fined, served with cease and desist orders, or been barred from acting as officers and directors of public companies?
You already know the answer: Zero.
Instead, bank executives have been allowed to "settle" these crimes by paying large fines with other people's money - specifically, shareholders who may have been deceived in the bank's latest "London Whale" case. It's almost as if the bank's senior executives lead charmed lives - or have very well-placed friends.
Even as the "Whale" legal crisis was exploding, Chase CEO Jamie Dimon appeared at the Davos financial "summit" sporting FBI cufflinks. Was he trying to tell the world something?
Now the government's issued "Whale" arrest warrants for two relatively low-level Chase bankers. That's encouraging, especially after so many years of inaction - but their choice of targets is not. Both indicted bankers are foreign nationals who may or may not be extradited under current agreements.
Yves Smith has an excellent overview of the state of play in the Whale investigation. The bottom line is this: Of all the targets the government might have pursued, these two bankers are among the hardest to locate and "turn" into witnesses against more highly-placed executives.
And it's far from clear there will be a government appetite for doing that. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is a major contributor to political campaigns. Senior bankers were Attorney General Eric Holder's primary clients in his lucrative private law career. The same is true for SEC head Mary Jo White.
Good for them for finally taking more aggressive action. But the burden of proof is still on them, and especially Holder, to demonstrate that they will pursue bank crimes aggressively. That means picking cases and targets that can be brought to justice, and finding witnesses who can be persuaded to testify in return for leniency. It's hard to believe that there aren't more cases like that to be found in JPMorgan Chase's rich vein of lawbreaking.
Fairness demands that we say it again: It may very well be that the leadership team at JPMorgan Chase is shocked - shocked! - at all this criminality, and may simply lack the basic managerial skills needed to end it. But we can't help thinking of the line from Mel Brooks' The Producers, when the jury foreman is asked to read the verdict against Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. "We find the defendants incredibly guilty," intones the foreman.
JPMorgan Chase's crimes cry out for a jury like that.
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This story was from the Huffington Post.
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