JPMorgan fined $4 million for deleting millions of records in error

New York, Jun. 23, (dpa/GNA) – JPMorgan Chase has been fined $4 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after accidentally deleting some 47 million emails and instant messages which were requested by subpoenas in several investigations.

As per the SEC order against JP Morgan Securities LLC, the banking major’s broker-dealer unit, it was accused that the bank failed to preserve electronic records as required.

Millions of electronic records from January 2018 to April 2018 were permanently deleted in June 2019, while troubleshooting an issue.

Broker-dealers are required to retain the originals of all communications for at least three years.

These millions of communications were housed in some 8,700 electronic mailboxes, including the email boxes of as many as 7,500 employees who had regular contact with Chase customers. Many of which were business records required to be retained, it noted.

As the records got deleted, the company failed to come up with the requested documents in at least 12 civil securities-related regulatory investigations.

These included eight SEC investigations and four other regulatory probes.

JPMorgan reported the deletion event to the commission in January 2020.

“Because the deleted records are unrecoverable, it is unknown – and unknowable – how the lost records may have affected the regulatory investigations. Indeed, a member of JPMorgan’s compliance department acknowledged in an internal email after the deletion event was discovered that lost documents could relate to potential future investigations, legal matters and regulatory inquiries,” the order said.

For the settlement of the issues, JPMorgan submitted an offer, which was accepted by the regulator.

GNA