Ex-JPMorgan trader contests UK regulator’s ‘Whale’ findings

Reuters | Esha Vaish 

A former JPMorgan Chase & Co trader has filed an appeal with a London tribunal court to challenge civil findings made by Britain’s financial watchdog against the bank over the “London Whale” debacle of 2012, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing tribunal records.

Julien Grout, a junior trader with JP Morgan who was indicted in the United States in September on five charges, will allege that he was “readily identifiable” in findings which were meant to be anonymous, the daily quoted people familiar with the matter as saying.

The French national was accused of participating in a conspiracy to hide losses within JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office in London by marking positions in a credit derivatives portfolio at inflated prices.

Another former JP Morgan employee, Achilles Macris, won the right to challenge the Financial Conduct Authority in April, after a tribunal court ruled that by failing to give him the right of reply to its report into the affair the regulator had infringed his rights.

Graham Huntley, a London-based solicitor for Grout, and the FCA could not immediately be reached for a comment outside of regular business hours in the UK.

Last year, JP Morgan admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle U.S. and British regulatory probes into the $6.2 billion (3.61 billion pound) losses arising from risky derivatives bets made in 2012 that came to be known as the “London Whale” trades.

Grout and another one-time trader at the bank, Javier Martin-Artajo, are considered fugitives by the U.S. government for not coming to the country to face trial over charges relating to the scandal. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.

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