JPMorgan Settles With U.S. Over ‘Quid Pro Quo' Hires in Asia - InvestingChannel

JPMorgan Settles With U.S. Over ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Hires in Asia



… details emerged on Thursday as JPMorgan agreed to pay about $264 million to settle U.S. allegations that it hired children of Chinese decision-makers to win business in violation of anti-bribery laws. Investigators described a systematic effort to curry favor with government officials and business executives… The bank will pay about $130 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission, $72 million to the Justice Department and $62 million to the Federal Reserve.

The Wharton student’s father was an executive of a Taiwanese company offering an $800 million transaction to the bank. In an e-mail, one banker wrote, “The quid pro quo is an analyst job for his son.”

U.S. officials said JPMorgan employees at the bank’s Hong Kong subsidiary sought to maximize profits by providing jobs and internships to children of individuals it hoped to do business with. In spite of a company policy prohibiting such quid pro quo, employees kept a spreadsheet that tracked the recruits and the revenue attributable to each one — and then doctored or altered paperwork about the hiring activity “to conceal the corrupt arrangement.” In all, the bank generated at least $35 million in profits as a result of those hires, U.S. officials said.