American Banker – JPMorgan Chase is having a hard time getting through the day without news of a probe surfacing. Following reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating whether the bank routinely hired the children of well-connected families in China, anony-mice told the Journaland, later, the FT that the Justice Department is now looking into whether JPM manipulated U.S. energy markets.
Scan readers will recall that the bank agreed to pay $410 million to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as part of a civil settlement over energy market manipulations just last month. JPM “didn’t admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement,” the Journal makes a point of noting. “It did name Blythe Masters, the bank’s head of commodities, three times in the filing,” the FT adds. JPM, Masters and the DOJ have yet to formally comment on the new probe. Several pundits, however, are weighing in on the recently unveiled China investigation.
