I’m a bit late in posting this, but I thought it was significant. It’s not getting a lot of media attention, though, so here I am in my little medium giving it a boost:
A New York state judge found JPMorgan Chase liable to the Russian-American billionaire Leonard Blavatnik for breach of contract for placing risky subprime mortgage securities in an investment account he held, and ordered the bank to pay more than $50 million in damages, including interest.
I notice now that although I clipped this from NYT, the short bit is actually from Reuters. Maybe nobody is sympathetic to a Russian billionaire, huh?
But there’s more, and more lawsuits against JPMorgan’s mortgage-backed securities business. You know, that’s the business that caused the world to collapse in 2008.
Mr. Blavatnik sued JPMorgan in 2009 to recover more than $100 million that he said the bank lost on a roughly $1 billion investment by CMMF L.L.C., a fund created by his company, Access Industries.
Separately, JPMorgan faces other litigation and investigations involving its handling of mortgage-related businesses during the financial crisis.
According to Mr. Blavatnik, JPMorgan Investment Management promised that it would invest Access’s money conservatively after opening the account in 2006.
We can afford a little sympathy for Mr. Blavatnik. The way things are going in Russia he’ll be arrested, subjected to a Kafka-esque trial, tossed into prison and his assets seized pretty soon.