SEC Files Settled Charges Against J.P. Morgan for Violating Whistleblower Protection Rule

J.P. Morgan to Pay $18 Million for Violating Whistleblower Protection Rule

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (JPMS) for impeding hundreds of advisory clients and brokerage customers from reporting potential securities law violations to the SEC. JPMS agreed to pay an $18 million civil penalty to settle the charges.

According to the SEC’s order, from March 2020 through July 2023, JPMS regularly asked retail clients to sign confidential release agreements if they had been issued a credit or settlement from the firm of more than $1,000. The agreements required the clients to keep confidential the settlement, all underlying facts relating to the settlement, and all information relating to the account at issue. In addition, even though the agreements permitted clients to respond to SEC inquiries, they did not permit clients to voluntarily contact the SEC.

ETFs Make Bitcoin’s Problems Even Worse

The pitch now being made by many, including Laurence Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, one of those launching an ETF, is that bitcoin should be digital gold, holding its value in a crisis.

So far there’s zero evidence that bitcoin works as digital gold. And bitcoin ETFs are likely to make its bad performance in crises even worse, by bringing in even more speculators to what’s already mostly a speculative asset.

In both the bank runs of March 2023 and the pandemic panic of March 2020, bitcoin proved to be digital fool’s gold, plunging at the first sign of trouble. From its February 2020 high to the low a month later it halved, while the S&P 500 lost a third of its value from high to low and gold fell 6%. In 2023’s bank runs, bitcoin lost almost 20% from its February high to the March low, four times as much as the S&P. Gold lost just 1%.

Coinbase’s SEC Clash Faces First Major Test as U.S. Judge Weighs Longshot Dismissal

Coinbase is about to make its case in a federal courtroom that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is wrong about its legal arguments that the crypto exchange has been trading unregistered securities. What the New York judge does next could have serious consequences for the wider industry’s clashes with the regulator.

The company has asked Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to throw out the case – a longshot request, but one that she may be taking very seriously. She’s booked four hours of back-and-forth with Coinbase and the SEC on Wednesday – an unusual depth of oral arguments for such a motion, which often tends to favor the government side in this kind of enforcement case.

“When the government is suing people they usually don’t lose on summary judgment motions,” said Patrick McCarty, a financial consultant and former SEC lawyer who teaches crypto classes at Georgetown Law. “But it’s possible – very possible.”

Nasdaq CEO: Financial crime is now a multitrillion-dollar epidemic

In 2023, more than $3 trillion in illicit funds flowed through the global financial system, according to Nasdaq’s research. The breakdown: $782.9 billion in drug trafficking activity, $346.7 billion in human trafficking, and $11.5 billion in terrorist financing.

In addition, there were $485.6 billion in losses from a range of fraud scams and bank fraud schemes worldwide.

“Those are just staggering statistics,” Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman told Yahoo Finance Live at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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Given the scope of the problem, Friedman — head of Nasdaq since 2017 — has sought to reposition the stock exchange from solely a destination to list and trade tech stocks to helping institutions to address fraud.

After the ETF: Bitcoin’s Coming Power Struggle

A sizable crypto community’s presence at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this week highlights an inherent tension: on the one hand, the industry’s desire for acceptance by the business establishment and, on the other, a concern that engaging with it could undermine crypto’s disruptive, rebellious ethos.

Crypto firm Ripple explored IPO outside U.S. but won’t go public soon

Garlinghouse told CNBC in 2022 that Ripple, the company behind the cryptocurrency XRP , will explore a public listing after its lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ends. The lawsuit, which began in 2020, is still ongoing.

However, speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Garlinghouse said Ripple has “looked at other jurisdictions that have clear rules of the road,” to go public.

The Ripple CEO said his company has not gone public in the U.S. yet because of the SEC’s actions.

“In the United States, trying to go public with a very hostile regulator that’s approved your S-1, that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me,” Garlinghouse said.

“Coinbase obviously had their S-1 approved. And now the SEC is suing them for doing things that was outlined in their S-1.”