It’s All JP Morgan’s Fault

Although the London Whale has come to be synonymous with a $6 billion trade gone wrong, the Senate has a rather different take on the matter: Stop blaming the Whale; just blame JP Morgan.

A new Senate report says the root problem lies with more senior levels of management than Bruno Iksil, the trader known as the Whale.

The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations highlights loopholes in the bank’s public disclosures and blames several executives, including Douglas Braunstein, who was chief financial officer at the time of the losses, according to the New York Times, who spoke to people briefed on the inquiry.

The report, which will be released on March 15, places the blame squarely on JP Morgan executives who allowed Iksil and others to build bets without fully warning regulators and investors.

The Congressional inquiry is expected to look into how executives ignored warning signs and failed to alert investors about changes to its method for detecting risk, the Times reports.

Braunstein and other senior executives could be asked to testify at a hearing this month, the Times notes. The subcommittee does not currently intend to call the bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon.

JP Morgan of course is vying to put the whole unpleasant matter behind it.

Last year, Dimon noted that the “Whale has been harpooned.” But a federal investigation into four London JP Morgan employees is still looking into whether they hid problems from the bank. Further, investigators are investigating e-mails suggesting that Iksil had raised alarms about the bet.

The Times reports that in January 2012, in an e-mail to a more senior trader, Iksil himself advised against increasing the bet. The size of the trades, Iksil said, were becoming “scary.” He apparently advised that the investment office take the “full pain” now. The subcommittee’s report is expected to detail how senior executives failed to act on the warnings from London.

While JP Morgan is being scrutinized at the highest level, regulators are equally unlikely to come out of the investigation without blame. The bank reportedly warned some regulators about the changing risk model.

Um, regulators who failed to act on a warning that later led to a multi-billion dollar loss that could potentially cause havoc on the markets. Deja-vu, anyone?

Melanie Rodier has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for over 10 years, covering business and finance, general news, and film trade news. Prior to joining Wall Street & Technology in April 2007, Melanie lived in Paris, where she worked for the International Herald ... View Full Bio