CONFIRMED AT LAST: The attempted cover-up of how JP Morgan torpedoed Lehman Brothers [The Slog]

“And then when you have the suckers by the balls, you squeeze just like this”

Around the time of the Lehman disaster, a senior insider at the firm relayed to me what seemed an astonishing allegation: that in the weeks prior to the eventual collapse, JP Morgan deliberately withheld huge monies owed to Lehman in order to make the bankruptcy a certainty from which they could benefit. I relayed this story to another contact the following year, and he not only corroborated the charge, he also said he was sure Barclays had done the same. The now disgraced Barclays CEO Bob Diamond took over Lehman in a fire sale only weeks later (using taxpayers’ money as a bridging loan to do it) and rapidly built up a commanding position for the division he then headed up, Barcap  – the investment arm of the bank.

Now, more than three years later, regulators have penalised JPMorgan for actions tied to Lehman’s demise. The bank settled the Lehman matter and agreed to pay a fine of approximately $20 million. The action took place because of Morgan’s ‘questionable treatment of [Lehman] customer money’: regulators accused JPMorgan of withholding Lehman customer funds for nearly two weeks. So it had been true after all.

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