JP Morgan Chase

The Slap on the Wrist Financial and Corporate Crime Fines

corporate alliance pledgeHave you ever noticed that large corporations can get away with pretty much anything? Over and over again a major scandal breaks and in the end the fines are pennies on the dollar for the profits gained by these nefarious financial activities.

Banks can launder money with impunity and the consequences are a small fine in comparison to the profits made. No matter how egregious there are no criminal chargers or revoking of the bank's charter.

The British bank Standard Chartered said on Thursday that it expected to pay $330 million to settle claims by United States government agencies that it had moved hundreds of billions of dollars on behalf of Iran.

At first glance the record $1.9 billion HSBC fine for laundering Mexican drug cartel money looks like a solid. Yet buried in the fine print, HSBC avoids charges via deferred prosecution.

Is The FDIC Doing Death By 1000 Cuts Against TBTF Banks?

mersJust when you think Justice will never be done, another civil lawsuit is filed. The FDIC filed three lawsuits against Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and BoA among others for peddling bad mortgage backed securities stuffed with toxic mortgages to their sucker, Guaranty Bank of Austin, Texas. Guaranty Bank later failed in 2009. Housing Wire:

This week, the regulator filed multiple lawsuits in Travis County (Austin), suggesting Guaranty suffered major losses from toxic RMBS loans sold and packaged by mega banks and other financial institutions.

Defendants named in the multibillion-dollar lawsuits include Countrywide, JPMorgan Chase ($38.04 0%), Ally Financial, Deutsche Bank Securities ($34.07 0%), Bank of America ($8.19 0%) and Goldman Sachs ($105.32 0%) among others.

FDIC, on behalf of Guaranty, claims the banks misrepresented loan-to-value ratios, underwriting criteria and appraisal amounts when selling, packaging and underwriting home loans that became collateral for mortgage securities sold to Guaranty.

Your Feet's Too Big!

Your pedal extremities are colossal  To me you look just like a fossil. – Fats Waller

 

Business executives like to talk about their “footprint”. When JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America were racing all around the United States to see which could be the first to have a full national presence in every important market, they would talk about how their footprint was expanding state by state. Then it was on to establish a full global footprint, including in all key emerging markets, which supposedly are going to provide double-digit earnings growth for these banks during the next twenty years.