The Senate Drafts the SEC's Case Against JPMorgan

A wealth of evidence in the Senate’s London Whale report

Workers raise a flag at JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters in New York before an annual Investor Day conference on Feb. 26Photograph by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

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By Dave Michaels

March 21, 2013 at 9:11 PM UTC

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This article is part of the March 25, 2013 issue of businessweek.

The Senate probe of JPMorgan Chase did more than conclude that the bank hid the full damage of last year’s trading losses from investors and regulators. It delivered 900 pages of evidence that could help the Securities and Exchange Commission make the case that bank executives broke the law.

Former SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said last year that her agency was investigating whether JPMorgan adequately disclosed the losses that eventually swelled to $6.2 billion on a derivatives portfolio. SEC officials will now be able to draw on the 300-page report by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations—chaired by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin—as well as more than 90,000 e-mails and other documents, 200 transcribed telephone calls, and 25 interviews with bank officials compiled by the committee.