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Full-Text Articles in Law
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale Z: Background & Overview, Arwin G. Zeissler, Rosalind Bennett, Andrew Metrick
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale Z: Background & Overview, Arwin G. Zeissler, Rosalind Bennett, Andrew Metrick
Journal of Financial Crises
In December 2011, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) instructed the bank’s Chief Investment Office to reduce the size of its Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) during 2012, so that JPM could decrease its Risk-Weighted Assets as the bank prepared to adopt the impending Basel III bank capital regulations. However, the SCP traders were also told to minimize the trading costs incurred to reduce Risk-Weighted Assets, while still maintaining the opportunity to profit from unexpected corporate bankruptcies. In an attempt to balance these competing objectives, head SCP derivatives trader Bruno Iksil suggested in January 2012 …
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick
Journal of Financial Crises
In December 2013, the primary United States financial regulatory agencies jointly adopted final rules to implement Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which is often referred to as the “Volcker Rule”. Section 619 prohibits banks from engaging in activities considered to be particularly risky, including proprietary trading and owning hedge funds or private equity funds. Banking regulators designed the final rule against proprietary trading in part to prevent losses like the $6 billion London Whale loss that took place in 2012 at JPMorgan Chase. Given the controversial nature of the Volcker Rule, it is …
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale F: Required Securities Disclosures, Arwin G. Zeissler, Giulio Girardi, Andrew Metrick
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale F: Required Securities Disclosures, Arwin G. Zeissler, Giulio Girardi, Andrew Metrick
Journal of Financial Crises
On April 13, 2012, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein took part in a conference call to discuss the bank’s first quarter 2012 earnings. Coming just a week after media reports first questioned the risks taken by JPM derivatives trader Bruno Iksil, Braunstein made a series of assertions about the trades. On May 10, JPM finalized its first quarter financial results, which included some disclosures regarding Iksil’s trading that were substantially different from Braunstein’s statements of April 13. At issue is whether the regulatory filings on April 13 and May 10, as well as verbal comments by Braunstein …
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale E: Supervisory Oversight, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale E: Supervisory Oversight, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick
Journal of Financial Crises
As a diversified financial service provider and the largest United States bank holding company, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by multiple regulatory agencies. JPM’s commercial bank subsidiaries hold a national charter and therefore are regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Since the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) invested the surplus deposits of JPM’s commercial bank units, the OCC was also CIO’s primary regulator. During the critical period from late January through March 2012, when CIO traders undertook the failed derivatives strategy that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion, JPM did not provide the OCC with …
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale B: Derivatives Valuation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick
Jpmorgan Chase London Whale B: Derivatives Valuation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick
Journal of Financial Crises
After consistently producing positive results through 2011, the JPMorgan Chase (JPM) traders who oversaw the bank’s Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) grew alarmed by a consistent string of losses beginning in January 2012. (The SCP was maintained by JPM to help hedge default risk and was the source of the 2012 London Whale trading loss.) To minimize the losses reported to their superiors until such time that market prices hopefully turned in their favor, the SCP traders began valuing their largest derivative positions in a manner that was not consistent with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and JPM policy. The fair …