JP Morgan Chase & Co has been issued with almost $350 million worth of fines and civil money penalties for inadequacies in its firm and client trade reporting program between 2014 and 2023.
Issued on 14 March, the $98.2 million fine and $250 million civil money penalty have been served by the Federal Reserve Board and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), respectively.
JP Morgan did not respond to a request for comment.
The OCC’s civil penalty relates to gaps in trading venue coverage and inadequate data controls implemented by JP Morgan Chase & Co to effectively operate its trade surveillance program.
In its findings, the OCC has concluded that the bank failed to surveil “billions of instances of trading activity” across at least 30 trading venues globally.
“These gaps and deficiencies in JPMC’s trade surveillance program constitute unsafe or unsound banking practices,” the watchdog said in a statement.
The OCC has issued a cease and desist to the bank that requires it to take corrective actions. JP Morgan Chase & Co must now correct the deficiencies, seek the OCC’s non-objection before onboarding new trading venues and obtain an independent third party to conduct a trade surveillance program assessment.
The Federal Reserve Board’s additional enforcement action of $98.2 million also relates to the bank’s client and firm trading reporting program and was taken in coordination with the OCC.
Its enforcement action also requires the bank to review and take corrective action to address the firm’s “inadequate monitoring practices”.
The two leading US capital markets watchdogs took action against almost a dozen organisations over record keeping failures with their combined penalties totalling nearly $550 million in 2023.
In August last year, The TRADE reported that the SEC had fined 11 Wall Street firms $289 million for widespread record keeping failures, while the CFTC had issued orders to four bank-affiliated swap dealers and/or futures commission merchants (FCMs), totalling $260 million.
