Senate probe finds JPMorgan hid losses, risks of trading operation that lost $6.2B

WASHINGTON – A Senate panel has issued a scathing assessment of JPMorgan’s $6.2 billion trading loss last year. The investigation found that bank officials ignored growing risks and hid losses from investors and federal regulators.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report also blames federal regulators for lax oversight that allowed the nation’s largest bank to pile up risky bets.

The report says officials at JPMorgan understated the trading losses to federal examiners by hundreds of millions of dollars and dismissed questions raised about the trading risks.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee’s chairman, said the probe showed “many, many failures” at the bank, some of them “serious and indeed egregious.”

The bank acknowledges it made mistakes but rejects any assertions that it concealed losses or risks.