JP Morgan Chase’s brokerage division will pay $4 million in a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for accidentally deleting 47 million electronic messages it was required to retain. The deletion, took place in 2019 and the SEC says it violated rules requiring brokers to retain communications for three years.
JP Morgan’s legal discovery team discovered the mix-up several months later, but the documents couldn’t be recovered, the SEC said.
The bank, which itself reported the incident in 2020, didn’t admit or deny the allegations, according to the order.
The SEC says that the deleted messages hampered regulatory investigations in12 investigations.
In December 2021, the brokerage arm of JPMorgan agreed to pay $200 million in fines in settlements with the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and admit it failed to keep track of employees’ use of personal messaging apps such as WhatsApp that circumvented record-keeping requirements.
Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer who handles SEC and CFTC whistleblower cases as well as cases under the False Claims Act. He can be reached at 617-823-3217 or at Jeff@JeffNewmanlaw.com
