Eric Holder might not be able to keep track of the guns his department sent to Mexico, but he sure knows where the money is. After a meeting last Thursday with JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, the two sides look closer to an $11 billion deal that would settle the civil and criminal charges regarding the bank’s mortgage practices.
Justice isn’t the only federal department making cash withdrawals. Earlier in the week, JPMorgan agreed to pay $920 million in fines related to the “London whale” case — trades that cost the company billions. The Securities & Exchange Commision, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve will be among those carving up this pie. Other agencies are looking to do the same with their own investigations into other bank practices.
Which invites rude questions: If there has been wrongdoing, rather than just bad judgment, shouldn’t the government be holding individuals responsible? And why pick on a bank whose practices meant it didn’t need to be bailed out when so many others did during the financial crisis?
We can see how the lawyers defending JP Morgan on these cases like it, because they will be paid a fortune. We can also see how federal agencies such as Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission like it, because pressuring JPMorgan into a settlement allows them to claim victory in cases they might not win if they had to prove individual guilt in a court of law. And we even see how management likes it, because it gets them off the hook.
But for the life of us we can’t see how those hurt most by any mistakes the bank made — i.e., the shareholders — benefit from having to dig into their pockets to pay off greedy federal regulators.