In what was the largest settlement ever reached between the United States Department of Justice and a corporation, JPMorgan Chase paid out $13 billion to the government in response to charges that the organization had significantly overstated the quality of the mortgages that it had been selling to investors leading up to the economic downturn. However, whistleblower Alayne Fleishmann believes that this settlement was actually not enough.
Fleishmann says that after years of Americans being told that the economic downturn was an accident, the fact that there is so much evidence to suggest it was actually recklessness on the part of companies like JPMorgan Chase would indicate that the corporation got off easy with this settlement. Fleischmann says that there are numerous reports, employee testimonies and other evidence to show that these sorts of corporations deserve to be severely punished for their actions.
Perhaps most shockingly, Fleischmann says, is that a full year after the settlement with JPMorgan Chase, the Department of Justice still has not submitted any criminal charges related to these low-quality mortgages. As she says, how is it possible that the government has made it clear that this significant amount of fraud existed, and yet not a single criminal charge has been issued in relation to the incident?
Fleischmann’s report that led to the punishments for JPMorgan indicated that approximately half of the loans within a particular multimillion-loan pool had overstated incomes.
Although greater sanctions against JPMorgan are not likely, we will continue to watch and see if any criminal charges ever come to fruition. To learn more about the whistleblower process, consult the knowledgeable Dallas attorneys with Whistleblower Law for Managers.
