(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay more than $130 million to settle SEC charges that it won business from clients and corruptly influenced government officials in the Asia-Pacific region by giving jobs and internships to their relatives and friends in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).<\/p>\n
JPMorgan also is expected to pay $72 million to the Justice Department and $61.9 million to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for a total of more than $264 million in sanctions resulting from the firm\u2019s referral hiring practices.<\/p>\n
According to an SEC order issued today, investment bankers at JPMorgan\u2019s subsidiary in Asia created a client referral hiring program that bypassed the firm\u2019s normal hiring process and rewarded job candidates referred by client executives and influential government officials with well-paying, career-building JPMorgan employment. During a seven-year period, JPMorgan hired approximately 100 interns and full-time employees at the request of foreign government officials, enabling the firm to win or retain business resulting in more than $100 million in revenues to JPMorgan.<\/p>\n
\u201cJPMorgan engaged in a systematic bribery scheme by hiring children of government officials and other favored referrals who were typically unqualified for the positions on their own merit,\u201d said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division. \u201cJPMorgan employees knew the firm was potentially violating the FCPA yet persisted with the improper hiring program because the business rewards and new deals were deemed too lucrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kara Brockmeyer, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division\u2019s FCPA Unit, added, \u201cThe misconduct was so blatant that JPMorgan investment bankers created \u2018Referral Hires vs Revenue\u2019 spreadsheets to track the money flow from clients whose referrals were rewarded with jobs. The firm\u2019s internal controls were so weak that not a single referral hire request was denied.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s order finds that JPMorgan violated the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. JPMorgan agreed to pay $105,507,668 in disgorgement plus $25,083,737 in interest to settle the SEC\u2019s case. The SEC considered the company\u2019s remedial acts and its cooperation with the investigation when determining the settlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay more than $130 million to settle SEC charges that it won business from clients and corruptly influenced government officials in the Asia-Pacific region […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55325,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55324\/revisions\/55325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}