Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Sons and Daughters: Documents, including spreadsheets and emails, shine some light on how hiring the children of prominent businesspeople in China may have helped JPMorgan Chase land business with state-controlled companies. For example, in one email a senior JPM banker in Hong Kong writes, "You all know I have always been a big believer of the Sons and Daughters program it almost has a linear relationship" with winning assignments. JPMorgan handed the documents over to U.S. authorities, who have been investigating the bank for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. There's an interesting contrast between the papers' opening paragraphs. The Times (which made this the lead story front page, upper-right hand on Sunday): "Federal authorities have obtained confidential documents
" The Journal (page C3 Monday): "A J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. investigation of its overseas hiring has found
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Volcker Rule: On Tuesday, regulators will vote on the final version of the Dodd-Frank regulation, designed to ban proprietary trading by commercial banks while allowing them to continue market-making and hedging. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies have been threatening to fight the rule in court, the Times reports. Meanwhile "one big law firm is installing extra printers in its conference rooms to print out multiple copies of the rule" when it comes out. (Don't tell the Sierra Club.) One contentious issue is whether the final rule allows portfolio hedging, a broader category of trades than hedges against specific positions. If the final rule prohibits this kind of hedging, the industry may challenge it on due-process grounds, since there was no such restriction in the draft version. But Post columnist Mike Konczal argues that the rule would be "fairly useless as a piece of reform" if it fails to curb portfolio hedging. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon argued that the London Whale's bets were legal under Volcker because they were portfolio hedges, Konczal points out.
HSBC Spin-Off? The global bank is considering an IPO of a partial stake in its U.K. retail and commercial banking business, the FT reports, framing the possible move as a response to regulatory ringfencing (the Brits' equivalent of Volcker).
Wall Street Journal
"Barney Frank vs. Dodd-Frank": This editorial concurs with the former Congressman's recent remarks that asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity shouldn't be stamped with the Scarlet "Sifi," as regulators seem poised to do.
"Oops: Maybe the SEC Isn't Dead": Wait why's this story in the sports section? Oh, they mean Southeastern Conference, not Securities and Exchange Commission. Never mind.
Financial Times
Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, who left in the wake of the Libor scandal, is making a comeback. In Africa.
Washington Post
"At a time when the government is being criticized for not holding senior bank executives liable for crisis-era crimes, a little-known federal agency is compiling a growing list of criminal convictions." The agency is SIGTARP, and the convictions are mostly small fry the biggest institution involved here was Colonial in Alabama.
The paper has a big investigative piece about a mysterious firm that's been buying up property tax liens around the country and aggressively pursuing distressed homeowners for the debts. "Aeon Financial is incorporated in Delaware, operates from mail-drop boxes in Chicago and is represented by a law firm with an address at a 7,200-square-foot estate on a mountainside near Vail, Colo."
