JPMorgan agrees to $800M in London Whale fines and will admit wrongdoing:

JPMorgan agrees to $800M in London Whale fines and will admit wrongdoing: In April and May of 2012, JPMorgan incurred over $6B in trading losses as a result of poor trades by its London office. Trader Bruno Iksil nicknamed the “London Whale” working under Chief Investment Office Ina Drew bet big on some credit default swaps and lost in spectacular fashion. He then tried to cover up the magnitude of his losses, which only exacerbated the situation. The biggest part of this penalty imposed by regulators in the U.S. and U.K. is not the $800M fine, which will hardly affect the firm, but that JPM will have to admit wrong doing. This admission of guilt opens them up to private lawsuits to go along with the fines in addition to the $800M being levied by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the FBI investigation; it also damages their credibility. Last week, I posted about how important the “neither admit nor deny guilt” clause was in the SEC’s decision against Citigroup. JPM will not be able to get off so easy. If you missed it, definitely check out that post about Citigroup, it is relevant here.