JPMorgan Chase to seek explanation from US authorities over sanctions against Russia | Too Big To Fail Giant JPMorgan Chase Admits to Breaking the Law...Sorta

ITAR-TASS News Agency, April 02, 2014 World<<

Earlier, the Russian FM said it regarded unacceptable JPMorgan Chase’s decision to block the Russian embassy’s money transfers to Sogaz under the pretext of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the US

EPA/JUSTIN LANE

NEW YORK, April 02. /ITAR-TASS/. JPMorgan Chase will seek explanation from the American authorities over sanctions that had earlier been introduced against Russia, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday in response to an ITAR-TASS request to explain the reasons for blocking by JPMorgan a transfer by Russia’s embassy in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, to Sogaz, an insurance company part-owned by Bank Rossiya, one of the targets of US sanctions announced on March 20.

“As with all US financial institutions that operate globally, we are subject to specific regulatory requirements,” says a statement forwarded by JPMorgan Chase spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli. “We will continue to seek guidance from the US government on implementing their recent sanctions.” The bank declined further comment.
 
There is a lot of confusion ... as to what might be the full scope of the sanctions and what we are hearing is while the sanctions are specific, a lot of US companies are adopting a much more risk-averse or cautious approach. There is almost self-sanctioning going on Chris Weafer partner at Macro Advisory

According to American media reports, Sogaz is partially owned by the Abros company which, in turn, is a subsidiary of Bank Rossiya, against which Washington in March had introduced sanctions under the pretext that Bank Rossiya was controlled by persons from the inner circle of the Russian leadership.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it regarded unacceptable JPMorgan Chase’s decision to block the Russian embassy’s money transfers to Sogaz under the pretext of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the United States in response to reunification of Crimea with Russia.

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>>Too Big To Fail Giant JPMorgan Chase Admits to Breaking the Law...Sorta<<

You might recall last year when JPMorgan Chase caught everybody's attention after it reportedly lost $2 Billion dollars on a single trade (subsequent reports noted that the loss was actually $6.2 Billion).  This became known as the "London Whale" scandal named after Chase's London-based trader Bruno Iksil who made huge bets in the derivatives market on Chase's behalf.  I'll spare you the details, but long story short Chase's "London Whale" began placing risky bets on a massive scale that caught the attention of smart hedge fund managers like Boaz Weinstein who, in turn, began betting against JPMorgan Chase.  In the end, Weinstein won.  Chase lost.  Big time.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem. After all, Wall Street banks win and lose money all the time on massive levels.  But what made this story so significant is that this was the first time a loss on this scale had happened with the public's money after the great recession of 2008. And when I say the public's money, I literally mean the money that you and I deposit into our Chase bank accounts every 2 weeks.  Chase took that money, placed it on the roulette wheel, and lost it.  Hence, the significance of this loss was much bigger than the nearly $6 Billion dollars that JPMorgan Chase lost through its failed credit default swaps.  No.  This loss symbolized our worst fears: Wall Street's "Too Big To Fail" banks have not learned their lesson from the 2008 recession.  Which means that, at any moment, they could (and in all likelihood probably will) cause the U.S. economy to fall off the cliff again.

http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2013/09/too-big-to-fail-giant-jpmorgan-chase.html