US regulators ‘taking seriously’ allegations of bankers’ support for Epstein

Exclusive: It follows calls from US senator Elizabeth Warren to investigate bank executives including ex-Barclays boss Jes Staley

US regulators say they are taking allegations that top banks may have facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activity “very seriously”, as they faced calls to investigate executives including the former Barclays boss Jes Staley.

In correspondence seen by the Guardian, bosses from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said they had reviewed a letter from the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, which raised concerns over bankers’ alleged support for the convicted child sex offender Epstein.

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JP Morgan warned US of $1bn in Epstein transactions possibly related to human trafficking

Bank says it alerted US of ‘suspicious’ transactions just weeks after paedophile was found dead in New York jail cell

JP Morgan warned the US government about more than $1bn in transactions linked to Jeffrey Epstein that were possibly related to reports of human trafficking, new documents confirm.

The largest bank in the US filed a suspicious activity report (SAR) in 2019, just weeks after Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell, about transactions linked to the paedophile financier and prominent business figures. It also flagged wire transfers made by Epstein to Russian banks.

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US banks predict climate goals will fail – but air conditioning firms will thrive

Reports predict global heating will bring catastrophes and that air conditioning market could grow by 41%

The world is on track for disastrous global heating – but this will create profits for some air conditioning companies, according to forecasts by leading Wall Street financial institutions.

Recent reports by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Finance all make clear the finance sector considers the Paris climate agreement limiting global temperatures, signed a decade ago by nearly 200 nations, is effectively dead and investors should plan accordingly.

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JP Morgan Chase requires all workers to return to office five days a week

Executives acknowledge ‘not everyone will agree with this decision’ as bank calls time on remote and hybrid working

JPMorgan Chase is summoning all staff back to the office, becoming the latest corporate giant to call time on era of remote and hybrid working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US’s largest bank, which has some 316,000 employees worldwide, announced on Friday that all workers on hybrid work schedules will be required to return to the office five days a week from March.

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Trump falsely touts endorsement from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon

Bank representative confirms Dimon has not endorsed Trump or any other candidate in the 2024 race

Donald Trump’s social media post that showed a purported endorsement for the presidency from the JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, among the most influential investment bankers on Wall Street, is false, a representative confirmed on Friday.

The Truth Social post – what appears to be a screenshot of a tweet with a siren emoji and text claiming Dimon had endorsed Trump, with a photo of Dimon – appeared at 1.56pm ET on Friday, as Trump was flying to Augusta, Georgia, for a campaign event.

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Global economic risks ‘could eclipse anything since second world war’, says JP Morgan boss

In annual letter to investors, Jamie Dimon warns ‘wars in Ukraine and Middle East could become far worse’

The boss of the US bank JP Morgan has warned that the world could be facing the most dangerous moment since the second world war, putting lives and economic growth at risk.

In his annual letter to investors, Jamie Dimon said the world had been “generally on a path to becoming stronger and safer” in recent years but had suffered a major reversal in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.

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Climate activists convicted of criminal damage after smashing glass door of JP Morgan

Activitists had used hammers and chisels to cause ‘many thousands of pounds’ of damage to the bank’s offices in London

Five climate change activists have been convicted of smashing a glass revolving door at JP Morgan’s European headquarters after a judge said their beliefs did not “afford them a defence”.

Stephanie Aylett, 29, Pamela Bellinger, 66, Amy Pritchard, 38, Adelheid Russenberger, 32 and Rosemary Webster, 66, used hammers and chisels to cause “many thousands of pounds” of damage during the Extinction Rebellion protest.

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Bank of England sounds out buyers for Metro Bank including NatWest

JP Morgan also approached as Metro reportedly tries to thrash out rescue package with investors

The Bank of England’s regulatory arm is understood to have approached a number of big lenders in the past few days, including NatWest and JP Morgan Chase, to see if they had any interest in the embattled high street rival Metro Bank.

JP Morgan Chase examined a potential bid to take over the whole of Metro after speaking to the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) but decided on Saturday night not to go ahead with it, a source said.

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JPMorgan allegedly processed more than $1bn for Epstein over 16 years

Lawyers for US Virgin Islands claimed the bank reported the transactions as suspicious to the treasury following his death

A lawyer for the US Virgin Islands said on Thursday that JPMorgan Chase told US authorities it processed more than $1bn for Jeffrey Epstein over 16 years.

JPMorgan reported the transactions as suspicious to the US treasury department following Epstein’s suicide in 2019, Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the territory, said at a hearing concerning its lawsuit against the largest US bank.

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JPMorgan to pay Jeffrey Epstein victims $290m in lawsuit settlement

District judge Jed Rakoff approved the ‘very large’ amount in addition to a $75m payout agreement with Deutsche Bank

A US judge on Monday granted preliminary approval to JPMorgan Chase’s $290m settlement with women who said Jeffrey Epstein abused them and that the largest US bank ignored the late financier’s sex trafficking.

The approval was issued by US district judge Jed Rakoff at a hearing in Manhattan federal court.

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Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to extort Bill Gates over extramarital affair

Convicted sexual offender reportedly threatened to expose Gates’s relationship with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova

The convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein appeared to threaten Bill Gates and tried to blackmail the multi-billionaire over his extramarital affair with a Russian bridge player, according to a new report published by the Wall Street Journal.

Speaking to the Journal, sources familiar with the matter said that after Epstein found out about the Microsoft co-founder’s affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova, he threatened Gates into reimbursing him for tuition costs that Epstein had initially covered for Antonova to attend software coding school.

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Elon Musk subpoenaed over JPMorgan’s role in Jeffrey Epstein’s activities

US Virgin Islands is suing the bank over sex trafficking by Epstein, saying he ‘may have referred or attempted to refer’ Musk as a client

The US Virgin islands subpoenaed billionaire cars-to-rockets entrepreneur Elon Musk on Monday to obtain documents in its litigation into the role played by JPMorgan Chase bank in the activity of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein when he was a customer, according to a court filing.

The Virgin Islands government is suing the bank over sex trafficking by Epstein. The Virgin Islands has been trying to serve Musk with a subpoena, the filing noted, adding that Epstein “may have referred or attempted to refer” Musk to JPMorgan as a client.

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Trading in PacWest shares suspended amid fears of new US banking crisis

Banks seek to calm markets as investors fear repeat of First Republic and SVB failures

[NEW]Trading in shares of the California-lender PacWest have been suspended after plummeting 42% amid wider fears about the health of the US’s regional bank sector.

PacWest had sought to calm markets on Wednesday and said it was in talks with several potential investors after its shares plummeted by as much as 60%. But the sell-off continued on Thursday and affected other regional banks.

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JP Morgan to snap up most of failed US bank First Republic

US banking titan to buy ‘all deposits and substantially all assets’ in deal brokered by regulators to contain banking failures

JP Morgan is to acquire most of the failed California bank First Republic, in a takeover brokered by regulators as the US races to contain a series of banking failures that has echoes of the 2008 global financial crisis.

After weekend talks to prevent a further escalation of the US banking crisis, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) confirmed that First Republic had collapsed and would be taken over by JP Morgan. The regulator is providing $50bn (£39.9bn) of financing as part of the deal.

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Time running out for US financial firms to bid for ailing bank First Republic

Deadline of Sunday set for companies such as JPMorgan Chase to table offer for California bank whose shares have plummeted

US regulators are racing to secure the sale of California bank First Republic, which is on course to become the third American lender to fail this year, a sequence of collapses that has drawn uncomfortable parallels with the 2008 global financial crisis.

Half a dozen US banks are in the running to take over stricken First Republic, according to reports over the weekend, with leading bidders including JPMorgan Chase, Citizens Financial and PNC Financial Services.

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JP Morgan execs reportedly maintained contact with Epstein after dropping him as client

Bank’s links to sex offender financier deeper than previously known, as it faces lawsuit brought by US Virgin Islands

Senior executives with the global banking giant JP Morgan maintained contact with disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for years after dropping him as a client in 2013, six years after he was charged with solicitation of a minor, according to a new report.

The allegation, reported in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, comes as JP Morgan, the world’s largest bank by assets, is being sued by an unidentified Epstein accuser and the US Virgin Islands – where Epstein owned a private island – for benefiting from human trafficking by ignoring internal red flags about his behavior.

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Older Americans protest against ‘dirty banks’ funding oil and gas projects

Protesters cut up credit cards and march to Washington branches of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo

Hundreds of older Americans gathered in Washington on Tuesday to protest against four of the country’s largest financial institutions, cutting up their credit cards in an act of defiance meant to condemn the banks’ funding of oil and gas projects.

The protesters marched to the downtown DC branches of the four targeted “dirty banks” – JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – before staging a “die-in” to symbolize the global threat posed by fossil fuels. In a nod to the age of the protest’s participants, demonstrators sat in painted rocking chairs as they chanted “Cut it up!” to those slashing their credit cards outside the banks’ branches.

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JPMorgan and Deutsche to face lawsuits over Jeffrey Epstein ties

Manhattan judge allows central accusations that banks benefitted from ties to sex trafficker to proceed

A US judge has ruled that a pair of lawsuits accusing two major banks of knowingly benefitting from ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein can proceed, though in a narrower form than had been initially filed.

The four-page ruling by Manhattan district judge Jed Rakoff granted motions by JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank to dismiss some counts against them, but permitted the central claims brought by Epstein accusers and the US Virgin Islands to proceed.

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JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank seek dismissal of lawsuits by Epstein accusers

Women say banks enabled and ignored red flags about the financier’s sex trafficking

JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank have asked a US judge to dismiss lawsuits by women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse and said the banks enabled and ignored red flags about the late financier’s sex trafficking.

The banks, in papers filed on Friday night in Manhattan federal court in New York, said they did not participate in or benefit from sex trafficking by their former client, and that the unnamed women failed to allege violations of a federal anti-trafficking law.

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US Virgin Islands suing JPMorgan Chase over Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking

Documents accuse bank of ‘turning a blind eye’ to illegal activities committed by their client

The US Virgin Islands is suing the bank JPMorgan Chase, accusing it of helping Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of women and girls, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York.

The documents submitted by the US Virgin Islands’ (USVI) attorney general accuse JPMorgan of “turning a blind eye” to illegal activities committed by Epstein – a client of the bank – on his private island, Little St James, which is part of the Caribbean US territory.

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