(HedgeCo.Net) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an order simultaneously filing and settling charges against JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, and J.P. Morgan Securities, plc (collectively, J.P. Morgan), provisionally registered swap dealers, for failing to comply with their reporting obligations as swap dealers. The order requires J.P. Morgan to pay an $850,000 civil monetary penalty and to cease and desist from any further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) or CFTC regulations, as charged.

“Timely and accurate reporting of swaps transactions by registered swaps dealers is critical to the CFTC’s mission to protect market participants and ensure market transparency and integrity,” said CFTC Acting Director of Enforcement Gretchen Lowe.

Case Background

The order specifically finds that, from September 2015 to February 2020, J.P. Morgan failed to report approximately 2.1 million short-dated foreign exchange (FX) swap transactions. These unreported short-dated FX swap transactions represented approximately fifty-one percent of the total number of FX swaps that J.P. Morgan executed during that same period. 

Short-dated FX swaps are transactions in which the parties exchange two currencies the day after execution and then reverse that exchange at a predetermined rate on the following business day. A short-dated FX swap is a reportable FX swap transaction because it involves an exchange of currencies and a reversal of that exchange on specific dates and at rates fixed at the inception of the contract. Consequently, J.P. Morgan was obligated to report its short-dated FX swaps under the relevant statutory and regulatory provisions, which it failed to do during the relevant period.

 J.P. Morgan has represented that it has reported all of the previously-unreported FX swaps transactions it was obligated to report.