WATCH LIVE - JPM Senate Hearings On The London Whale
Bloomberg is providing televised coverage of the hearings.
We are live blogging the event inside.
JPM - Complete Fraud List (Background reading)
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The first question to any witness should be foundational: given JP Morgan's extensive track record of lying to regulators and the public about the London whale trade, why should we not presume that all of your testimony today is perjured?
In a nutshell, JP Morgan's London whale trade involved (1) gambling with money covered by FDIC insurance, (2) watching its bet blow up and then doubling down on the bet, (3) chaging its risk model internally so it could understate the risks to the public, and (4) a regulator (OCC) who was privy to all the action and who did nothing.
Carl Levin just swore in the witnesses. Query why no one in the Senate (or the House) made Jamie Dimon take an oath before testifying last summer? Oh, that's right. The JP Morgan witnesses are now free to perjure themselves blue in the face with Eric Holder's formal blessing.
10:05 am - Sen. McCain finishes reading from a prepared script.
10:10 am - Ina Drew is explaining how awesomely she has lived her life. Seriously, how did this woman get control of the London office.
Levin: Per JPM representations to regulators, OCC reported that book is decreasing in size when in fact SCP [synthetic credit porfolio] was inceasing in size, correct?
Drew: Yes.
Levin: Do you think it's a coincidence that the [undisclosed internal] CRM analyst projection of a $6 billion loss turned out ot be correct?
Weiland: Not completely.
McCain has asked good questions, which is eliciting interesting evasions and partial truths. However, Johnny Boy is simply reading the questions and lacks the presence of mind to ask ANY follow-up answers. Pathetic.
It's telling that in the first 90 minutes of live testimony, no one on the Senate subcommittee, despite having established JPM's knowledge of its massive lies to regulators, has asked a single question about JP Morgan's knowing and intentional violations of Sarbannes Oxley--an indisputable crime. Why not?
Finally some action. Braustein confirms that it was Jamie Dimon who ordered data provided to regulators be cut off. He supposedly can't recall if Dimon was angry at him for restoring the data flow. Braustein says (to McCain) that Dimon concealed the data reports due to concerns over confidentiality. That's so fucking ridiculous that it seems to have penetrated even McCain's punch-drunk skull, if his grasping and pathetic efforts to phrase a follow-up question is any indication.
[Note: Chris Whalen has been saying for close to a year that Dimon knew everything.]
Levin: losses are piling up, so you change your accounting practice from reporting mid-points to reporting outer limits.
Cavanagh: We did that due to the market!
Levin: Was it coincidental that the change made losses took better?
Cavanagh: It's what happened.
Levin: Answer the question: was it a coincidence?
Cavanagh: Yes.
Levin: when did the reporting shift begin to occur?
Cavanagh: January 2012.
Levin: And it's your testimony that the shift was coincidental. You're under oath.
Cavanagh: The purpose of the change was to reduce the loss.
Levin: So you've changed your testimony.
Cavagnagh: Yes. I was misunderstood. My first answer was made from the perspective of someone else!!!!
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Hearing Background
Carefully orchestrated indignation is scheduled for yet another display in the Senate this morning at 9:30 a.m, in a sub-committee on Homeland Security, which is fitting given Jamie Dimon's role as a domestic global terrorist.
Let the Senate charades begin...
JPMorgan Whale Trades: A Case History of Derivatives Risks and Abuses - (Senate link)
Again, we are not calling JPM a terrorist bank, the government is.
Witnesses
PANEL 1
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INA DREWFormer Chief Investment OfficerJPMorgan Chase Bank NANew York, NY
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ASHLEY BACONActing Chief Risk OfficerJPMorgan Chase Bank NANew York, NY
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PETER WEILANDFormer Head of Market Risk - Chief Investment OfficeJPMorgan Chase Bank NANew York, NY
PANEL 2
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MICHAEL J. CAVANAGHCo-Chief Executive Officer - Corporate & Investment BankJPMorgan Chase Bank NANew York, NY
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DOUGLAS L. BRAUNSTEINCurrent Vice ChairmanJPMorgan Chase Bank NANew York, NY
PANEL 3
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THE HONORABLE THOMAS J. CURRYComptroller of the CurrencyU. S. Department of the TreasuryWashington, DC
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SCOTT WATERHOUSEExaminer-in-Charge - OCC National Bank Examiners - JPMorgan ChaseOffice of Comptroller of the CurrencyWashington, DC
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MICHAEL SULLIVANDeputy Comptroller for Risk Analysis - Risk Analysis DepartmentOffice of the Comptroller of the CurrencyWashington, DC
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Taken together, all previous displays of outrage by bought-and-paid-for government representatives have produced nothing of any substance whatsoever. In fact, the impotence of these carnivals has become so predictable, indeed so yawn-inducing, that it appears dis-information merchants in congress are working overtime trying to distract people from the barren wasteland of justice with wild promises of a brighter future.
Sadly, this wholly unbelievable puffery manages to turn up credulous writers and bloggers round after round after round after round after round--where was I? doing Jaeger bombs!!!--as reliably as Charlie Brown's appearance before Lucy's teed up football. In the current episode of "The Dupe" we see none other Dave Dayen in the starring role:
"People I’ve talked to expect the hearing to be explosive. As an excellent preview for the Friday fireworks..." Yeah, yeah, yeah.....zzzzzzzzzz THUDDdddd.
Let's consider the actors involved in the imminent charade. First is Carl Levin, whose Senate subcommittee has investigated financial crimes before only to come up empty-handed. If memory serves, Levin produced a criminal referral that went straight into Eric Holder's waste basket without so much as furrowing the senator's brow.
Next is John McCain, who co-authored the report at the heart of tomorrow's hearing. McCain has never seen a financial fraud that he couldn't either profit from (as the worst of the Keating 5 scum in the S&L crisis) or cover up with bailout monies taken from the taxpaying fraud victims against their will (as the man who fatally derailed his own presidential campaign to champion TARP).
There are also the JP Morgan hearing witnesses such as Ina Drew. They will function as the punching bags tomorrow. One or two of them might even appear to lose their jobs. I say appear because that will happen only if they have already been compensated for a couple lifetimes' worth of "work" in exchange for any Kabuki hara kiri you might think you've seen. Rest assured it is fake, which is why you won't hear anything about the Senate's subpoena power in re witness compensation memos and agreements.
Unseen players include the aforementioned Washington disinformation merchants. Since last night, for example, another blogosphere luminary, Matt Taibbi, has weighed in on the supposed severity of the hearing using exactly the same term as Dayen: "explosive"
http://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/312340511220432896
In other words, Disinfo Merchants 2, Public nil. Stay tuned for scoring updates.
Finally there is the Attorney General of the United States. He recently issued the formal coroner's report pronouncing the Rule of Law dead. That only underscores, does it not, the fact that the entire Senate proceeding tomorrow is fundamentally a sham? JP Morgan enjoys its status above the law as a matter of law now. How in the hell can the Senate at this point even purport to be relevant? I'll tell you how: by conducting the impeachment trial of Eric Holder. Place your bets on when that will happen. In the mean time, enjoy the latest iteration of the fraudulent conspiracy between Washington and Wall Street on display in a few hours.
Let's be clear about the so-called "explosion" that is apparently on tap: the goalposts of the financial crisis moved wtih Holder's declaration that systemic banks will not be prosecuted. With that, the U.S. jettisoned all pretense to the ideal formerly known as the Rule of Law and indeed democratic governance. Beware fake field goals on this Ides of March. Anything short of impending impeachment proceedings is a clear miss now.
TAG - The unknown banking subsidy - Chris Whalen
In the case of JPM, the hundreds of billions of dollars in new deposits helped to fuel the speculative mischief we now know as the “London Whale” trade. Faced with vast amounts of cash that the bank could not deploy in the loan market, JPM instead gave the TAG funds to the JPM office of the chief investment officer. The London-based trader Bruno Iksil and his colleagues gambled the excess funds generated by TAG in the derivatives market, causing a significant financial and reputational loss for the bank.
More here:
Chris Whalen: Ina Drew Is A Scapegoat, Jamie Dimon Instructed London Office To Dump Hedging
BIGGUS DICKUS - BEWARE THE IDES
Eric and Jamie are friends
We know how this love affair ends
Jamie's a whale
Who's Too Big Too Jail
So Eric subserviently bends
Check this out (scroll down the page):
JPMorgan - Comlete Fraud List
WATCH: Eric Holder Questioned On Too Big To Jail
Mar 14, 2013 at 9:34 AM
Reader Comments (29)
Drew: Yes.
Weiland: Not completely.
Cavanagh: We did that due to the market!
Levin: Was it coincidental that the change made losses took better?
Cavanagh: It's what happened.
Levin: Answer the question: was it a coincidence?
Cavanagh: Yes.
Cavanagh: January 2012.
Levin: And it's your testimony that the shift was coincidental. You're under oath.
Cavanagh: The purpose of the change was to reduce the loss.
Levin: So you've changed your testimony.
Cavagnagh: Yes. I was misunderstood.
Braustein: We had a new cover sheet on our TPS reports, and we weren't aware that we weren't sending them.
Braustein: Yes, on the 10th.
Levin: But they weren't sent.
Braustein: But they had access, so we were being transparent.
Levin: Is it accurate, as you said to the public on the 10th, that regulators got reports on positions on a regular basis?
Braustein: Dance dance dance, NO.
Levin's staff ought to be lashed for that nonsense.
Wake me up when Jamie Dimon is subpoenaed and put under oath...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/14/jpmorgan-senate-investigation-london-whale
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/live-blogging-the-senate-hearing-on-j-p-morgan-chase-and-the-infamous-london-whale-episode-20130315
Turns out I'm not alone in seeing the surreal replication of the TPS cover sheet scene from Office Space in what JP Morgan was doing internally. Taibbi riffs on it at length in his review (going so far as to embed the scene in the article), whereas I made only a brief note of it on the fly:
"Levin: Why weren't exec mgmt reports not sent to the OCC Jan through April?
Braustein: We had a new cover sheet on our TPS reports, and we weren't aware that we weren't sending them.
Mar 15, 2013 at 12:34 PM | Cheyenne"
The crazy thing is that Taibbi saw the Office Space parallel in an altogether different hearing segment than the one where it jumped out to me. If that's not an indication to GTFO of JPM, I don't know what is...
If they were to question Jamie Dimon and his minions under oath, asking the the right questions with prosecutors ready to file charges followed by prosecution and penalties, I might admit Senator Levin and the Committee are trying to do the job they were elected to do. Instead, all I saw was more dancing Washington D.C. puppets controlled by Wall Street crooks who didn't bring their best puppeteering skills to the hearings. The puppets actually got to present some embarrassing comments and questions.
Isn't the Statute Of Limitations about to expire on all this anyway? Although it probably doesn't matter, we all know they're going to walk and get richer when they do.
The Senate hearing was no more than a dog-eared porno mag, another handjob for the proles administered from the elite's endless supply of disposable opera gloves, tossed down the memory hole as soon as the deed was done. I hope the people who got excited about it beforehand feel like they got used, because they did. Again.
The hearing's banal impotence was broadcast from the Senate Report that preceded it, in the recommendations on pages 16 and 17:
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/rJ5Q_k_NsIk8
Here you will find that threadbare litany of forward looking curatives like steering committees, compliance procedures, earnest calls for new rules and initiatives--all bullshit designed to avoid the real issue: what crimes occurred that led to this mess? That brings us to your question, Sage: "Isn't the Statute Of Limitations about to expire on all this anyway?"
The answer depends on what crime you have in mind. If you're talking about the statute of limitations for Sarbanes-Oxley violations, the answer is most definitely "no." The S/L on Sarbox runs 5 years from the violation or 2 years from the discovery of a violation, whichever is sooner. As the Whale trade occurred last year--when Jamie Dimon was ordering people to withhold information about it from the government--there is time yet under the statute. I would say it's unfortunate that no one in the Senate touched on this issue, but that would imply that the omission was accidental.
The redactions of the Report's exhibits were no accident either, nor was the failure to probe them. As Pam Martens points out, the redactions conceal JP Morgan's extensive gambling in the stock market with federally insured money.
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/03/senate-censors-part-of-report-on-jpmorgan-about-its-stock-trading
If Congress were serious about reigning in JP Morgan's excesses, it would call Jamie Dimon in to testify again now that we know a lot more. And this time it would put Mr. Dimon under oath, and congressmen would use their mouths for asking questions rather than giving sloppy knob jobs. But Congress isn't serious because it benefits from the financial crimes and scams that rip off the people they're supposed to represent.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/13/us-jpmorganchase-whale-exec-idUSBRE97C0RU20130813
[snip]
"Mr. Martin-Artajo has co-operated with every internal and external inquiry which was required of him in the UK," said a statement released by lawyers at Norton Rose Fulbright in London.
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NOTE: the work "required" . The UK is ground zero for most of this shit as the rules are very different (and advantageous too with unlimited leverage etc.) Ala Enron to Jon Corzine and on and on.
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Free Willy: FCA Drops Case Against London Whale
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-10/free-willy-fca-drops-case-against-london-whale#comment-6297767
Once upon a time, at JP Morgan’s London-based internal hedge fund CIO unit, a legend was born.
Bruno Iksil — better known as “The London Whale” or “Voldemort” or “He Who Must Not Be Named” — carved out his place in the annals of CDX trading history when a tail hedge gone wrong effectively forced him to sell massive amounts of protection on IG.9 back in Q1 of 2012.
Long story (and it is a very long story) short, Iksil’s footprint in the market became so large that he was eventually picked off (or perhaps “harpooned” is more appropriate) by Boaz Weinstein (a legend in his own right) among others. One epic Jamie Dimon public relations blunder and several billion dollars later, and the world had learned a valuable lesson about what it means when a bulge bracket bank says it is “investing” excess deposits.
Needless to say, some people were curious to know who knew what and when (and who might have tried to cover up the mounting losses) in London and the legal proceedings with various former members of the team are ongoing, but given what we know about the generalized reluctance to prosecute white collar crime mistakes, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Iksil, who is already off the hook in the US after going to UBS route, has been cleared in the UK. FT has the story:
The UK financial watchdog has dropped its investigation of Bruno Iksil, the former JPMorgan trader known as the “London Whale” whose trades led to $6.2bn in losses, clearing him in the three-year probe.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s enforcement division sought to bring a civil action against Mr Iksil for failing to prevent or detect mismarking within JPMorgan’s chief investment office.
But its internal panel of independent experts, the Regulatory Decisions Committee, ruled that the watchdog did not have a strong enough case to proceed.
“We can confirm that the FCA will not be taking any further action,” the authority said.
Mr Iksil, who lives in France, has already avoided criminal charges in the US by striking an immunity deal with prosecutors there in exchange for his co-operation.
His lawyer, Michael Potts, at Byrne and Partners, said: ??“It is rare for the RDC to dismiss an FCA enforcement case at this very initial stage of the disciplinary process. Mr Iksil has fully co-operated throughout the FCA investigation and will continue to co-operate as a witness in the ongoing criminal and civil proceedings in the USA.”?
Julien Grout, a junior derivatives trader on the desk, and Mr Iksil’s former boss, Javier Martin-Artajo, who was a managing director at the bank, are both being prosecuted in the US for their roles in the affair. They deny wrongdoing. The FCA is not seeking to bring a case against either man.
The only person still being investigated by UK authorities in connection with the 2011 losses is Achilles Macris, who ran the London office of the bank’s chief investment office and oversaw its synthetic credit portfolio team. It was in that division where trades in credit derivatives ultimately led to the trading losses in 2012.
London-based executives in the CIO “deliberately misled” regulators examining the derivatives positions, “deliberately reassuring” officials that they were “simply” adjusting a hedging position while internally admitting to being “in crisis mode” over mounting losses, the regulators found.
And so, another episode of Wall Street's Costliest Gambles ends with the following familiar disclaimer: "No human traders were jailed or otherwise harmed in the making of this program."
But before you get angry just remember, it's only a "tempest in a teapot"...
Free Willy: FCA Drops Case Against London Whale
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-10/free-willy-fca-drops-case-against-london-whale#comment-6297767
Once upon a time, at JP Morgan’s London-based internal hedge fund CIO unit, a legend was born.
Bruno Iksil — better known as “The London Whale” or “Voldemort” or “He Who Must Not Be Named” — carved out his place in the annals of CDX trading history when a tail hedge gone wrong effectively forced him to sell massive amounts of protection on IG.9 back in Q1 of 2012.
Long story (and it is a very long story) short, Iksil’s footprint in the market became so large that he was eventually picked off (or perhaps “harpooned” is more appropriate) by Boaz Weinstein (a legend in his own right) among others. One epic Jamie Dimon public relations blunder and several billion dollars later, and the world had learned a valuable lesson about what it means when a bulge bracket bank says it is “investing” excess deposits.
Needless to say, some people were curious to know who knew what and when (and who might have tried to cover up the mounting losses) in London and the legal proceedings with various former members of the team are ongoing, but given what we know about the generalized reluctance to prosecute white collar crime mistakes, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Iksil, who is already off the hook in the US after going to UBS route, has been cleared in the UK. FT has the story:
The UK financial watchdog has dropped its investigation of Bruno Iksil, the former JPMorgan trader known as the “London Whale” whose trades led to $6.2bn in losses, clearing him in the three-year probe.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s enforcement division sought to bring a civil action against Mr Iksil for failing to prevent or detect mismarking within JPMorgan’s chief investment office.
But its internal panel of independent experts, the Regulatory Decisions Committee, ruled that the watchdog did not have a strong enough case to proceed.
“We can confirm that the FCA will not be taking any further action,” the authority said.
Mr Iksil, who lives in France, has already avoided criminal charges in the US by striking an immunity deal with prosecutors there in exchange for his co-operation.
His lawyer, Michael Potts, at Byrne and Partners, said: ??“It is rare for the RDC to dismiss an FCA enforcement case at this very initial stage of the disciplinary process. Mr Iksil has fully co-operated throughout the FCA investigation and will continue to co-operate as a witness in the ongoing criminal and civil proceedings in the USA.”?
Julien Grout, a junior derivatives trader on the desk, and Mr Iksil’s former boss, Javier Martin-Artajo, who was a managing director at the bank, are both being prosecuted in the US for their roles in the affair. They deny wrongdoing. The FCA is not seeking to bring a case against either man.
The only person still being investigated by UK authorities in connection with the 2011 losses is Achilles Macris, who ran the London office of the bank’s chief investment office and oversaw its synthetic credit portfolio team. It was in that division where trades in credit derivatives ultimately led to the trading losses in 2012.
London-based executives in the CIO “deliberately misled” regulators examining the derivatives positions, “deliberately reassuring” officials that they were “simply” adjusting a hedging position while internally admitting to being “in crisis mode” over mounting losses, the regulators found.
And so, another episode of Wall Street's Costliest Gambles ends with the following familiar disclaimer: "No human traders were jailed or otherwise harmed in the making of this program."
But before you get angry just remember, it's only a "tempest in a teapot"...
http://wallstreetonparade.com/