The U.S. Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the massive trading loss announced by JPMorgan Chase. The Washington Post reports the probe into the $2 billion blowup has just gotten underway, but it comes as company CEO Jamie Dimon survived a shareholder push Tuesday morning to strip him of the title of chairman of the board.
Dimon also won an endorsement of his pay package from last year at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting, but told investors the company’s mistakes were “self-inflicted.”
In an interview on ABC’s “The View” Tuesday morning, President Barack Obama said even though JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks, it still lost big because of bad bets on complex derivatives.
“This is why we passed Wall Street reform. The whole point was even if you’re smart, you can make mistakes,” the president said.
It’s not yet clear what laws – if any – may have been broken by the company’s actions.
(Source: NY1)
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4 Responses
If they make stupidity a crime, the country will go broke building new prisons.
If “gambling” (which is what they were doing is illegal), where will they have room for all the lottery customers? In all fairness, their odds of winning their bet on derivate securities was much greater than the chance of winning even the lowest prize in the Powerball or MegaMillions.
Now every Bank has to be nervous that if they lose money they may have to face a criminal investigation.
That is really really great for buisness.
This is fine as long as there is the SAME investigation into Obama for taking our economy into the tank. Obama also made “investments” that were bad, VERY VERY VERY BAD.
Oh, and what about Obama and his personal stash of JPMorgan Chase stock??? Not a word.
#1
You play Pwerball and Megamillions with your own money. JPMorgan was using money that other people had entrusted to their care.
I do not claim to understand the complexities that led to their loss, but by their own admission gross error were committed.