The settlement resolves investigations by the US justice department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission into trading in precious-metals and Treasury marketsA view of the exterior of the JP Morgan Chase corporate headquarters in New York City on May 20 2015.
The New York-based lender will pay the biggest monetary penalty ever imposed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, including a $436.4m fine, $311.7m in restitution and more than $172m in disgorgement, according to a CFTC statement. The CFTC said its order will recognise and offset restitution and disgorgement payments made to the department of justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.
The accord also ends the criminal investigation of the bank that led to a half dozen employees being charged for allegedly rigging the price of gold and silver futures from 2008 to 2016. Two have entered guilty pleas, and three traders and a former JPMorgan salesman are awaiting trial. In all, according to the settlement deal, 10 JPMorgan traders caused losses of $206m to other parties in the market.
“The conduct of the individuals referenced in today’s resolutions is unacceptable and they are no longer with the firm,” said Daniel Pinto, a co-president of JPMorgan. “We appreciate that the considerable resources we’ve dedicated to internal controls was recognized by the DOJ, including enhancements to compliance policies, surveillance systems and training programmes.”
More than two dozen individuals and firms have been sanctioned by the department or the CFTC, including day traders operating out of their bedrooms, sophisticated high-frequency trading shops and big banks such as Bank of America and Deutsche Bank. The act allows for prosecutors to charge multiple criminal acts involving a group of people in the same case as long as they were part of the same enterprise. The department said the conspiracy on the JPMorgan metals desk ran from March 2008 to August 2016. The two former metals traders for the bank who have pleaded guilty to fraud charges are co-operating with authorities.