Banks before people
You are a bank, and have a client that makes you quite a bit of money, but you suspect or know that client may substantially involved in fraud. What do you do?
If you are JPMorgan Chase, according to a suit filed by Madoff trustee Irving Picard, you sweep aside your concerns and continue business as usual.
Lawsuit Charges JPMorgan Suspected But Ignored Madoff Fraud
Bernie Madoff was not a criminal mastermind who single-handedly made fools of the world’s sophisticated investors.
An explosive lawsuit charges he got help from his friendly bankers at Chase — who had serious suspicions but coldly decided not to make waves while they were raking in a half-billion dollars in fees and profits from the Ponzi schemer’s victims.
The suit, filed by Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for those victims, seeks $6.4 billion from JPMorgan Chase for the investors who took paper losses totaling $65 billion.
“Incredibly, the bank’s top executives were warned in blunt terms about speculation that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme — yet the bank appears to have been concerned only with protecting its own investments,” said Deborah Renner, a lawyer on Picard’s team.
The ethical bad-news didn’t stop at taking fees from Madoff; Chase is also accused of taking its own money to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, that were invested with Madoff out of his funds because they suspected his operations and returns were not above board.
Bad bad Chase | admin February 4, 2011
