A report out of Reuters just confirmed that JP Morgan's Global Head of Precious Metals Trading was put on leave last month, August 2019.
Mr. Michael Nowak is got listed as the bank's leading silver, gold, platinum, palladium, and base metals derivative contract trader. His LinkedIn profile shows his having been under the employ of JP Morgan for over 23 years. Still not having served perhaps enough time for JP Morgan to remain loyal.
Neither Nowak nor the other JP Morgan likely trading executive put on leave (Gregg Smith) has been charged with financial criminality or crimes committed. At least not yet.
JP Morgan is still under an ongoing US Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation into the bank's often nefarious precious metals trader crimes committed often over the last more than one decade.
To date, two JPMorgan precious metal traders have admitted to the DoJ having had committed financial crimes for handfuls of years collectively while working for JP Morgan's silver, gold, platinum, and palladium trading desks.
On this very SD Bullion blog and bullion podcast hosting website, we have twice interviewed long-time outspoken critic of JP Morgan, Mr. Ted Butler about the ongoing DoJ investigation.
Both times we have spoken with Ted, he reconfirmed our belief that even higher-level JP Morgan precious metal trading executives were potentially also going to be brought up on criminal charges.
It remains to be if the DoJ files criminal charges against this global head of JP Morgan's precious metals trading desk or not.
What kind of federal prison sentences might be given out?
Will these convicted traders be financially liable for any damages rendered?
Does being a paid mercenary for a globally systematically important bank (G-SIB) like JP Morgan, necessarily take you off the hook for any crimes committed?
Is this just the cost of doing business? One that the US citizenry has to keep taking on the chin?
Is the DoJ just going to stand there and let price rigging traders ruin the faith and trust in our US financial market exchanges ongoing?
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From the first JP Morgan Precious Metals Trader bust in late 2018, the DoJ wrote:
"In pleading guilty, Edmonds admitted that he learned this deceptive trading strategy from more senior traders at the Bank, and he personally deployed this strategy hundreds of times with the knowledge and consent of his immediate supervisors.
This case is the result of an ongoing investigation by the FBI’s New York Field Office."
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Language from past JP Morgan trader convictions alluded to the DoJ's potential suspicions that the bosses of the guilty traders were not only completely aware of the crimes committed. But that these crimes were committed by higher management training and likely financial incentives or bonuses to do so.
From the second JP Morgan Precious Metals Trader bust only one month ago:
The last over decade long former executive director at JP Morgan to admit guilt for rigging precious metal prices from summer 2007 to the summer of 2016. Having worked for JPMorgan in its London, New York, and Singapore offices. This 'precious metals derivative price rigging' thing goes on all over the world in the offices of this too-big-to-fail JP Morgan bank (i.e., being so financially systematically big that JP Morgan's potential bankruptcy threatens the world financial system according to the BIS' FSB, page 3).
Our recent two podcast interviews with outspoken JP Morgan silver manipulation critic, Mr. Ted Butler, are both below if you need to catch up to speed.
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Ted Bulter | 1st JP Morgan Trader Busted | November 2018
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Ted Bulter | 2nd JP Morgan Trader Busted | August 2019
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Time will tell how much evidence the DoJ was and will be able to attain in terms of prosecutions at JP Morgan's trading and executive desks.
The fact that the supposed head of the bank's precious metals trading division is now not reporting to his desk, after 23 years of time. That says a lot about the heat likely being applied.
Hopefully, the evidence leads to actual justice being served for any and all parties who committed financial crimes over the last multi-decades of time.
If not, some of the hardest currencies to gain, things like trust, confidence, good financial market reputations. They will erode further from where they have fallen to post-2008.
And no, whether or not JP Morgan is the #1 G-SIB according to the Bank for International Settlements' Financial Stability Board. That matters not.
Let justice get done, and if that too-big-to-fail bank, falls apart.
Nationalize and restructure it.
This next time, our supranational laws now call for a JP Morgan bail-in, not a JP Morgan bailout.
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