2
egregious, and knowing alleged fraud and other illegal conduct related to the worst financial crash in the U.S. since 1929, which caused the worst economy in the U.S. since the Great Depression
(“Financial Crisis”)
. The Financial Crisis is estimated to cost the U.S. between $13 trillion and $38 trillion (which would be as much as $120,000 for every man, woman and child in the country). 3.
As the DOJ admitted,
JP Morgan Chase’s
illegal conduct
in making “serious misrepresentations to the public” and “knowingly bundl[ing] toxic loans and sell[ing] them to unsuspecting investors” had a “staggering” impact, “
helped sow the seeds of the mortgage
meltdown,” and “contributed to the wreckage of the” F
inancial Crisis. 4.
The DOJ has also admitted that this contract for $13 billion and civil immunity is
“record breaking” and
the
“largest settlement with a single entity in American history
.
”
In fact, it is more than 300% larger than the next largest settlement with a single entity that the DOJ has ever entered into, which was for only $4 billion. 5.
In addition, of the $13 billion, the DOJ imposed a $2 billion penalty, which the
DOJ admitted was “the largest FIRREA penalty in history.”
That is actually a gross understatement because the next largest FIRREA penalty assessed in at least the last five years appears to have been a mere $15.5 million. Thus, the FIRREA penalty the DOJ imposed on JP Morgan Chase here by contract was 12,000% larger than that next largest penalty. 6.
Yet, this contract was the product of negotiations conducted entirely in secret behind closed doors, in significant part by the Attorney General personally, who directly negotiated with the CEO of JP Morgan Chase
, the bank’s “chief negotiator
.
”
No one other than those involved in those secret negotiations has any idea what JP Morgan Chase really did or got for its $13 billion because there was no judicial review or proceeding at all regarding this historic