Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Happy Primary Day, New Yorkers! Did you vote yet? Besides eliminating some of the approximately 43 people running for mayor, you also have a chance to weigh in on the Sheriff of Wall Street's attempted return to elected office. Eliot Spitzer is vying with (and currently behind in the polls) Scott Stringer for the job of New York City comptroller, a role that entails running the city's pension funds and potentially making life even more interesting for Jamie Dimon. Speaking of JPMorgan Chase…

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Foiled Comeback: Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's hope of staging a political comeback was halted on Tuesday when he lost the Democratic nomination for city comptroller to Scott Stringer, the Manhattan Borough president. The one-time "sheriff of Wall Street" spent more money, but Stringer, as the New York Times describes it, painted Spitzer as a rich man who saw himself as above the law.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...New EU Regulator: Over strong German objections, the European Union went ahead Thursday with plans to create supranational agency empowered to regulate the continent's banking industry and shutter failing banks the New York Times reported. Approval of the so-called single bank resolution system represents a huge step on the road to a European banking union. Creation of such a powerful agency was important enough that it should have required changes to the European Union treaty, German Chancellor Angel Merkel argued. Germany and other critics of single bank resolution pointed out taxpayers across the continent would bear the financial burden of shutting down individual banks. They also wanted to retain as much national control over their banks as possible, but their position was weakened by a legal opinion that concluded the EU already possessed the authority to implement single bank resolution. The Financial Times obtained a copy of the confidential document. New York Times, Financial Times

Receiving Wide Coverage ...#TwitterIPO: If economics is the allocation of scarce resources, what does it mean that the company had to devote 67 of 140 characters to the disclaimer, "This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale"? Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Summers Withdraws: Big news broke over the weekend when Lawrence Summers, one of the two top candidates, took his name out of consideration for the Federal Reserve chairman spot, writing in a letter to President Barack Obama "that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation's ongoing economic recovery." (Full text of Summers' letter can be found here, here and here; President Obama's statement accepting Summers' withdrawal is here.) The development is somewhat surprising, given that, earlier this month, White House insiders were reporting a Summers' nomination was imminent, despite mounting Senate opposition to his chairmanship. The Atlantic attributes Summers' withdrawal to a "small team of Democrats" — namely, Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — who were expected to oppose the nomination, though other news outlets say it was Syria that ultimately did Summers in. "The president's inability to rally Congressional Democrats on Syria persuaded Mr. Summers that his most important audience — the Senate, which must confirm a Fed chairman — probably could not be won over," notes the Times. Global financial markets were cheering on Monday, reports the Journal, largely based off of the assumption that Fed vice chairman Janet Yellen, who is considered "to be more cautious about winding back the Fed's stimulus program," will now get the job. But Yellen's appointment may not be a lock. The President still has options, points out the Washington Post's Neil Irwin, including Donald Kohn, Roger Ferguson, Stan Fischer and Jeremy Stein. (Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's is also being name-dropped by a few news outlets, though reports have already surfaced that he remains uninterested in the position.) "Now we get to see what direction the president wants to go now that his favored candidate is out of the picture," Irwin concludes. More big picture coverage: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, American Banker

Receiving Wide Coverage ...'Whale' Settlement: Anonymice are telling their favorite news outlets that JPMorgan Chase is nearing an about $750 million to $800 million settlement with U.S. and U.K. regulators related to last year's pesky $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss. In a big win for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the civil settlement, which could be announced as early as this week, is expected to include an admission of wrongdoing. This admission, part of the SEC's harder stance on enforcement actions, "could open the bank to additional legal liability from shareholder suits, although securities lawyers said the bar is high to prove the bank intentionally misled investors," the Journal notes. Spokespersons for the bank and regulators, which also include the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, have yet to formally comment on the forthcoming settlement. Anonymice are billing the move as part of JPM's efforts to repair its frayed relationships with regulators, calm upheaval at the bank and finally put the trading loss behind it, but the new settlement may not be the last time the bank has to deal with the undead "Whale." "The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulator overseeing the market in which the losses occurred, has balked at joining the broader settlement and plans to fine the bank later this year," unnamed sources tell Dealbook. The settlement also won't mark the end of the megabank's regulatory woes, given all the probes that are still pending. "As a result of these cases, [JPM] said it anticipates $6.8 billion in future legal costs in excess of the money it has already set aside to handle litigation," the Washington Post notes.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...A Glut of (Sort of) JPM News: We say sort of because some of this, you may have heard already. For instance, more regulatory scrutiny is on the way, per JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, but, don't worry, the bank is working on it. "We have been asking our senior people to eliminate products and services that are not essential to serving our customers and are not core to our business," Dimon wrote in an internal memo that many news outlets, including American Banker, got ahold of. Among this forthcoming regulatory scrutiny, the Journal reports, is a separate Commodity Futures Trading Commission probe into whether the bank or its traders manipulated trades during the infamous "London Whale" scandal. (Scan readers will recall the bank is nearing a broader settlement with almost every other regulator in the U.S. and U.K. over the $6 billion trading loss.) Anonymice also tell the Journal "the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Manhattan prosecutors ... continue to gather evidence for what could result in criminal charges," related to the trade. (So, nope, the "Whale" still isn't exactly dead.) And, while we're on the subject of criminal charges, Dealbook reports that Julien Grout, one of the two ex-JPM traders already indicted over the incident, per his lawyer, is simply a scapegoat. "The defense will depict Mr. Grout as a low-level employee who was simply following orders," Dealbook writes. "Or, as Mr. Little [his lawyer] put it, Mr. Grout was a 'junior trading assistant acting under the direct instructions of his managers.'" In non-"Whale"-related news, the Journal reports that JPM has "already refunded credit-card customers" for mis-sold add-ons expected to be part of a (you guessed it) settlement with regulators later this week. The fines associated with this settlement, made payable to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are estimated to be around $80 million.

Breaking News This Morning ...'Whale' Settlement: JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay regulators $920 million to settle allegations related to its $6 billion 'London Whale' trading loss. Earlier estimates of the widely expected settlement pegged the penalties to total around $750 million to $800 million, but anony-mice were heralding the higher total to various news outlets late yesterday. The bank did admit wrongdoing related to poor internal controls as part of the settlement. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times

Receiving Wide Coverage ...All About JPM: Everyone's still talking about JPMorgan Chase's $920 million settlement with U.S. and U.K. regulators over last year's $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss. The main takeaways from JPM's Terrible Thursday? For starters, the bank's "Whale" problems may not be over. The Journal reports that the SEC is continuing a civil investigation of individual employees who are connected to the matter. Bank CEO Jamie "Tempest in a Teapot" Dimon is not expected to be one of them. (Once again, regulators punish the bank, but not its top executives, this Dealbook column notes.) However, both Dimon and the bank certainly remain out of favor with regulators. "The bank is now facing scrutiny from at least seven federal agencies, several state regulators and two foreign nations," the Times reports, with an investigation into the trading debacle by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission presenting "a particularly thorny problem." Dealbook columnist Peter Hennings explains: "The issue [in the CFTC's case] is whether the bank's extensive trading manipulated the derivatives markets in violation of the Commodity Futures Act. That law gives private investors a claim for damages against traders who sought to manipulate the value of futures contracts." So, if the bank were to admit wrongdoing to the CFTC, it would potentially open itself up to investor lawsuits over the trading fiasco. These lawsuits, conversely, are not likely to result from JPM's admission of guilt to the Securities and Exchange Commission that came as part of yesterday's broad settlement. "The candor, largely limited to questions of record-keeping, was contained. JPMorgan never said it misled or deceived anybody," explains the Journal's Jacob Gershman. "Any potential securities class-action would still have to show that JPMorgan made a reckless misstatements that had real financial consequences." Also, in case you missed it, the "London Whale" settlement wasn't the only enforcement action against JPM yesterday. The bank was also fined a total of $389 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over deceptive credit card practices.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...All Over But for the Yellen: A new conventional wisdom has congealed in the week since Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration: that Janet Yellen will be nominated to take the helm of the Fed. Yellen's seeming momentum was reinforced by a Wall Street Journal report that the White House is urging Democratic senators to defend her against potential attacks. Further feeding the Yellen surge: dueling profiles in the Journal and the Financial Times that may leave readers feeling whiplash. The Journal emphasizes that the Fed's vice chair has clashed with others at the central bank "and left some hard feelings in the wake of those confrontations," while the FT's much more glowing article gives the opposite impression, concluding that "Janet Yellen is unusually kind and decent." Meanwhile, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein writes that Summers lost out because liberal Democrats have big fundamental disagreements with President Obama about financial regulation, and they saw Summers as a stand-in for the president.