JPMorgan Said to Weigh Disclosing Report Faulting Dimon

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s board will consider releasing an internal report this week that faults Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s oversight of a division that lost more than $6.2 billion on botched trades, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The final report, which builds on a preliminary analysis released in July, is critical of senior managers including Dimon, 56, former Chief Financial Officer Doug Braunstein, 51, and ex-Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew, 56, for inadequately supervising traders in a U.K. unit that amassed an illiquid position in credit derivatives last year, the people said.

The report, which isn’t complete, will be presented to the board when it meets tomorrow. The directors will then vote on whether to disclose it when the bank announces fourth-quarter results the following day, said the people, who asked not to be named because the report isn’t yet public.

Joe Evangelisti, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to comment on behalf of the firm and each board member.

U.K. regulatory authorities have asked the bank to keep the findings private until they can ensure it adheres to European privacy laws that protect individuals, one of the people said. The report describes executives at JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, and their role in the loss.

The lender’s analysis in July said that London traders may have intentionally mismarked some of their positions and sought to hide the full amount of their losses.

London Whale

Bruno Iksil, the U.K. trader nicknamed the London Whale because his trading book was big enough to move the market, made a wrong-way bet on credit derivatives that led to the company’s biggest trading loss. At one point, as much as $51 billion in shareholder value was erased.

Some senior executives “acted like children” in handling the fallout from the errant trade, Dimon said last week at a conference the bank hosted in San Francisco. “Instead of helping, they were running around with their head chopped off,” he said.

JPMorgan has come under increasing scrutiny and regulatory oversight in the aftermath of the U.S. housing crisis. Agencies investigating the trading loss include the U.S. Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mortgage Abuse

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency may sanction the bank as early as today for lax anti-money laundering controls, according to a person familiar with that probe.

Separately, JPMorgan agreed in a deal announced Jan. 7 to pay $2 billion, on top of $5.29 billion assessed against the bank last year, to settle mortgage abuse charges by the Federal Reserve and OCC.

Non-bank enforcement officials also are clamping down on JPMorgan. Last month, a Milan judge convicted the company and three other banks of fraud in selling the city derivatives, a decision that all four firms plan to appeal.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Jan. 12 that findings had been reached after a review of the U.K. unit’s trades and that Dimon’s bonus will be cut. The company announced plans to conduct an internal review when it initially disclosed the trading loss in May. Dimon said in July the board would consider the loss when setting his compensation for 2012.

Dimon received $23 million in pay and bonuses for 2011, about the same as the previous year, most of it in restricted stock and options. His cash bonus was $4.5 million, down from $5 million in 2010.

(Source: Bloomberg)