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Full-Text Articles in Law

Basel Iii B: Basel Iii Overview, Christian M. Mcnamara, Michael Wedow, Andrew Metrick Jan 2020

Basel Iii B: Basel Iii Overview, Christian M. Mcnamara, Michael Wedow, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-09, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) faced the critical task of diagnosing what went wrong and then updating regulatory standards aimed at preventing it from occurring again. In seeking to strengthen the microprudential regulation associated with the earlier Basel Accords while also adding a macroprudential overlay, Basel III consists of proposals in three main areas intended to address 1) capital reform, 2) liquidity standards, and 3) systemic risk and interconnectedness. This case considers the causes of the 2007-09 financial crisis and what they suggest about weaknesses in the Basel regime …


Lessons Learned: James B. Lockhart Iii, Ben Henken, Dan Thompson Aug 2019

Lessons Learned: James B. Lockhart Iii, Ben Henken, Dan Thompson

Journal of Financial Crises

Insights from discussions with James B. Lockhart III, who was the Director (CEO) and Chairman of the Oversight Board of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) upon the agency’s creation on July 30, 2008. Topics include the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as other elements of the Bush Administration's 2008 crisis response activities.


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

As a global financial service provider, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by banking regulatory agencies in different countries. Bruno Iksil, the derivatives trader primarily responsible for the $6 billion trading loss in 2012, was based in JPM’s London office. This office was regulated both by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) of the United States (US) and by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which served as the sole regulator of all financial services in the United Kingdom (UK). Banking regulators in the US and the UK have entered into agreements with one another to define basic parameters …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

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 Aug 2019

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 Aug 2019

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 D: Risk-Management Practices, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale D: Risk-Management Practices, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) prided itself on having the best risk-management practices in the financial industry, having survived the 2007-09 financial crisis in better shape than many competitors. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon often spoke of the bank’s “fortress balance sheet.” A keen focus on risk management is vital to JPM’s longevity, as is the case with all highly leveraged financial institutions. However, the JPM Task Force that investigated the $6 billion 2012 London Whale trading loss concluded that risk-management practices at the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO), the unit in which the loss occurred, were given less scrutiny by senior …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale C: Risk Limits, Metrics, And Models, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale C: Risk Limits, Metrics, And Models, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Value at Risk (VaR) is one of the most commonly used ways to measure and monitor market risk. At JPMorgan Chase (JPM), very large derivative positions established by Bruno Iksil in the Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) caused the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) to exceed its VaR limit for four days in a row in January 2012. In response, the CIO changed to a new VaR model on January 30, which appeared to immediately reduce VaR by half. However, JPM soon discovered that this new VaR model had not been properly implemented and the bank went back to using the …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale B: Derivatives Valuation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

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 …