A Senate committee led by Republican John McCain and Democrat Carl Levin released its 300-page report on JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)’s mishandling of London Whale trades that resulted into a whopping $6.2 billion losses. The report insulted the management of the largest U.S. bank for ignoring risks, fighting with regulators, misleading investors and trying to work around the rules.
The committee investigated over 90,000 documents and 200 telephonic conversations and instant messages.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)’s top management was told for months about the mushrooming losses from the bad derivatives bets, but they did nothing to control the situation, the report said. The Senate report has provided ammunition to people demanding stricter financial reform regulations.
The Senate report also slammed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for its poor supervision. The OCC issued a statement saying that it recognizes its mistake in its supervision, and that the regulator has taken significant steps to improve its oversight.
The report admonished the top JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) executives for failing to control the traders, especially chief financial officer Doug Braunstein, who will testify before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today.
Ina Drew, the ex-chief investment officer told the Senate hearing that she has no personal responsibility for the losses. Drew said in the testimony that the risk models were “severely flawed.” She also told the committee that many London trading team members miss-valued positions and didn’t share the risk information with her.
“I believe that my oversight of the synthetic credit portfolio, including during 2012, was reasonable and diligent,” Ms Drew said.
She added that she learned through the Task Force Report in January 2013 and the bank’s public statements in July last year that valuations for several positions were inflated. CEO Jamie Dimon, who testified before the Congress in June 2012, will not testify.
None of the London Whale traders, who have been fired by the company, will appear before the committee simply because the Senate doesn’t have foreign subpoena ad testificandum powers.
In April last year, Doug Braunstein told investors that the Whale trades were approved by JPMorgan’s risk mangers, transparent to regulators, long-term, and served as a hedge against risk. The Senate report “JPMorgan Chase Whale Trades: A Case History of Derivatives Risks and Abuses” reveals that those statements didn’t even have an iota of truth.
A JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) spokesperson said that the company acknowledged its mistakes, and its top management never had any intention to mislead anyone.
The bank’s shares were down 1.98 percent to $49.99 at 1:29 PM EDT.
