The Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into JPMorgan Chase’s foreign exchange trading, the bank disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday.
JPMorgan said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other regulatory bodies were also pursuing civil investigations.
The probes relate to the company’s trading activities and its management of traders, JPMorgan said in the filing. Bloomberg reported specifically that they involved allegations that J.P. Morgan and other banks rigged currency markets.
JPMorgan added that it was working with authorities to resolve the investigations, adding that there “is no assurance that such discussions will result in settlements.”
Nevertheless, the bank also raised the upper bound of its possible losses from litigation to $5.9 billion, up from $4.6 billion in the previous quarter.
JPMorgan has been involved in several high-profile settlements with the U.S. and other governments recently, most notably for mortgages that went bad during the financial crisis and the 2012 “London Whale” trading loss. It is also involved with a number of other ongoing private and civil lawsuits as well as inquiries by regulators.
Other U.S. and foreign banks are preparing for the legal fallout from foreign exchange investigations, the Wall Street Journal reported, including Citigroup and Barclays.
In the wake of the financial crisis, the Justice Department has been criticized by some critics for settling with banks and for failing to prosecute individual bankers rather than companies.
Attorney General Eric Holder, who has served for all of President Obama’s administration, announced in September that he would resign as soon as a successor is confirmed.
