Zamansky & Associates Announces Its Investigation of JP Morgan Chase over Sales of Its Proprietary Mutual Funds and Chase

  Zamansky & Associates Announces Its Investigation of JP Morgan Chase over
  Sales of Its Proprietary Mutual Funds and Chase Strategic Portfolios

Business Wire

NEW YORK -- July 10, 2012

Zamansky & Associates LLC is investigating JP Morgan Chase & Co. (“JP
Morgan”)(NYSE: JPM) over sales of proprietary mutual funds and Chase Strategic
Portfolios for possible securities fraud and/or breaches of duties owed to
bank and brokerage firm customers.

On July 3, 2012, The New York Times published an article entitled “Former
Brokers Say JP Morgan Favored Selling Bank’s Own Fund Over Others”. This
article reported that JP Morgan encouraged its financial advisers to favor JP
Morgan's own products even when competitors had better-performing or cheaper
options. With one crucial offering, JP Morgan exaggerated the returns of what
it was selling in marketing materials, according to documents reviewed by The
Times. Additionally, JP Morgan was ordered by arbitrators to pay $373 million
to a competitor for favoring its products, despite an agreement it had to sell
alternatives.

While investors have pulled money from stock funds, JP Morgan has gathered
assets in its stock funds at a rapid rate, despite having only a small group
of top-performing mutual funds. Over the last three years, roughly 42 percent
of its funds failed to beat the average performance of funds that make similar
investments, according to Morningstar, a fund researcher. “I was selling JP
Morgan funds that often had weak performance records, and I was doing it for
no other reason than to enrich the firm,” said Geoffrey Tomes, who left JP
Morgan last year. “I couldn't call myself objective.”

The investigation also concerns sales of Chase Strategic Portfolios, an
investment program offering managed portfolios that has grown to $20 billion
in assets. JP Morgan charges investors management fees of 1.6%, in addition to
the fees charged by mutual funds in the portfolios—other firms waive the
duplicative fees. According to The New York Times, JP Morgan also provided
investors with marketing materials containing misleading “theoretical”
returns, which mask the true weaker performance of the Chase Strategic
Portfolios.

If you JP Morgan bank or brokerage customer who invested in its mutual funds
or the Chase Strategic Portfolios, please contact Jake Zamansky at (212)
742-1414 or jake@zamansky.com.

Zamansky & Associates is one of the leading law firms specializing in
securities fraud and financial services class action litigation and
arbitration.

Contact:

Zamansky & Associates LLC
Jake Zamansky, 212-742-1414
jake@zamansky.com