By William K. Black
(Cross-posted from Benzinga.com)
Golf is one of the sports associated with the CEOs of big banks, so it is not surprising that Jamie Dimon is expert at seeking to invoke Winter Rules whenever JPMorganChase (NYSE: JPM) finds that its actions have placed it in an unfavorable lie.
Golfers know that they cannot unilaterally invoke Winter Rules – only the folks in charge of the course can put Winter Rules in effect. When Winter Rules are put in effect the golfer can improve his lies by placing his ball in a preferred lie.
A New York Times investigation by Edward Wyatt documented the depth of the rot at the SEC in a February 3, 2012 article entitled “S.E.C. is Avoiding Tough Sanctions for Large Banks.”
“JPMorganChase, for example, has settled six fraud cases in the last 13 years, including one with a $228 million settlement last summer, but it has obtained at least 22 waivers, in part by arguing that it has “a strong record of compliance with securities laws.””
SEC investigations have found that JPMorganChase is a serial violator of the securities laws. The bank gets caught, promises to clean up its act, gets fined, signs a typically useless consent decree that has no admissions, creates no precedent, and undercuts deterrence, and gets waived out of the few detriments there are to banks with records of serial SEC staff findings of violations.
JPMorganChase exemplifies this pattern of the SEC winking at serial fraud by the systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs). The SEC routinely allows the SDIs to operate under Winter Rules and the SDIs routinely and repeatedly employ preferred lies.
But the metaphor is inexact for three reasons. First, Winter Rules are not supposed to be routinely available. They are reserved for unusual circumstances where the course is unusually unplayable due to weather. Second, Winter Rules are available due to problems with the course not caused by the player. Third, when Winter Rules are invoked by the golf course the course posts that information publicly and Winter Rules are available to all players rather than to a subset, i.e., the wealthiest players.
Consider what the world would be like if we had a “three strikes law” for corporations. Assume that the corporations were only assessed a “strike” if the violations were attributable to the actions of a senior officer. Assume further that the SEC and the Department of Justice (DOJ) actually brought actions against the SDIs and required admissions of violations of the law in settlements and pleas. The SDIs would have been dissolved (the equivalent of being sent away for life) decades ago.
Consider the chutzpah of JPMorganChase claiming “a strong record of compliance with securities laws” after SEC staff investigations found six violations in 13 years. But that kind of arrogance and indifference to complying with the law is inevitable under an SEC regime that allows the SDIs to play by Winter Rules. “Improved lies” captures perfectly the perverse incentives that the SEC has created.
The CEOs of SDIs who know that they can commit fraud with effective impunity (the SEC fines are typically chump change from the SDIs’ standpoint) develop a belief in their divine right to transcend the law and conventional morality. Jamie Dimon captures the mindset that Nietzche celebrated for the Superman. Dimon extends the logic of transcendence to its ultimate, absurd, extreme. He is enraged that the CEOs running the SDIs have been criticized. It turns out that the SDIs’ CEOs are sensitive types. Nobody exemplifies this Rich White Whine motif better than Dimon.
“I’ve disagreed right from the beginning of this blanket blame of all banks,” Dimon said in an interview with Charlie Gasparino of the Fox Business Network Tuesday. “I don’t like that. I think that’s just a form of discrimination that should be stopped.”
The interview was taped shortly before Dimon left for the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, where Dimon said he will be speaking with other attendees about financial regulation. At last year’s Davos summit, Dimon made similar remarks pushing back against the vilification of the banking industry, calling it “a really unproductive and unfair way of treating people.”
No serious critic has a “blanket blame of all banks.” The blame is focused on SDIs, particularly SDIs like JPMorganChase that investigations find engaged in recurrent fraud, yet were treated to Winter Rules because they were SDIs. These SDIs are not only the bane of the world economy; they are the bane of honest banks.
Dimon has also reached the logical, albeit absurd, conclusion about the legitimacy of investigating JPMorganChase. He is tired of the investigations finding fraud, so he has decided, in the context of the settlement negotiations of the widespread foreclosure fraud by five large mortgage servicers including JPMorganChase, to offer a settlement in return for prohibiting the government from investigating his banks’ mortgage origination and foreclosure fraud.
When news reports claimed that the federal government was reducing its disgraceful offer of widespread impunity from investigation and prosecution, Dimon responded that it was likely that JPMorganChase would not enter into a settlement that did not have a broad prohibition on investigating JPMorganChase’s frauds.
“The new unit “has a pretty good chance of derailing it,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC on Thursday, referring to the settlement. JPMorgan is one of the five banks involved in those negotiations.”
Dimon is the face and mindset of crony capitalism. It is long past time for the SEC to end selective Winter Rules and Preferred Lies for the SDIs.
Bill Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and is an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He spent years working on regulatory policy and fraud prevention as Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, Litigation Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and Deputy Director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement, among other positions.
Bill writes a column for Benzinga every Monday. His other academic articles, congressional testimony, and musings about the financial crisis can be found at his Social Science Research Network author page and at the blog
Follow him on Twitter: @WilliamKBlack
