The London Whale may be about to sink some of Jamie Dimon’s pay.
JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) board is expected to dock the bonuses of chief executive Dimon and former chief financial officer Douglas Braunstein, as a consequence of the company’s $6 billion trading loss at its chief investment office last spring, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
The board is expected to review an internal report about the debacle when directors convene this Tuesday, a day before JPMorgan Chase is due to report its fourth-quarter results.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesman declined to comment.
The report reportedly takes several current and former JPMorgan Chase executives to task for the trading loss, which has already led to the departure of the company’s chief investment officer and the appointment of a new chief financial officer.
The losses also sparked a series of lawsuits by shareholders and investigations by regulators in both the U.S. and U.K, according to the company's latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Regulators in the U.K. reportedly pressed the bank to hold off on publishing the internal report until they have had a chance to review it, although Dimon himself wants to “let it all hang out,” an anonymous source told the Journal.
Dimon received $23.1 million in compensation in 2011, including a $4.5 million cash bonus and $17 million in stock awards and options. The package made Dimon the nation’s highest-paid bank CEO last year, according to Bloomberg Markets magazine.
JPMorgan's board also is expected to withhold bonus pay from Braunstein, who served as CFO at the time of the trading losses. Braunstein, who relinquished the post at the end of the year and became a vice chairman, received $13 million in compensation in 2011, including a $2.9 million cash bonus and stock options and awards worth $7.7 million.
The fate of Dimon’s bonus may lie in the hands of the board’s compensation committee, which is made up of Stephen Burke, the CEO of NBC Universal; Lee Raymond, the retired former CEO of Exxon Mobil; and William Weldon, a retired former chief executive of Johnson & Johnson.
Dimon has called the trade a “stupid error” and accepted responsibility for lapses on his part that allowed the losses to occur. “If I actually took you through it, it's kind of embarrassing personally, too, I should have caught it also,” Dimon told the Council on Foreign Relations in October. “I didn't.”
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