JPMorgan to pay $4 mn fine to SEC as it mistakenly deletes 47 mn records
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Photo: Reuters)
Written by Austin Weinstein
JPMorgan Chase & Co. will pay. A $4 million fine to settle allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the bank mistakenly deleted millions of electronic records, leaving communications unavailable to regulators in dozens of investigations.
The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Thursday that JPMorgan Securities permanently deleted 47 million electronic records, including emails and instant messages, from January 2018 to April 2018. As a result, the regulator said JPMorgan was unable to provide documents required in eight investigations of its investigations. Securities and Exchange Commission and four more. Regulatory investigations. The SEC has not said whether these actions focus on the bank.
“Because deleted records are not recoverable, it is unknown — and unknown — how the lost records affected regulatory investigations,” the SEC said in a settlement order.
JPMorgan declined to comment. The bank has neither acknowledged nor denied the regulator’s allegations.
In 2021, the bank paid $125 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission and $75 million to the CFTC to settle allegations that the company broke the rules by not saving trade communications on platforms like WhatsApp. Other banks will pay fines for similar behavior next year.
The SEC said brokerage firms such as JPMorgan Securities are required to keep records of business communications sent and received for at least three years.
In Thursday’s settlement, the regulator alleged that the company mistakenly deleted millions of communications from the first quarter of 2018 as it was resolving the flaw. The SEC said the seller responsible for archiving the bank records told JPMorgan the records would be protected.
The regulator alleged that the seller did not protect emails sent to the Chase communications domain. As a result, those records were wiped, including the email boxes of up to 7,500 employees who were in regular contact with Chase clients.
First published: June 22, 2023 | 10:44 p.m ist