Thursday, August 8, 2013

Corporate Social Responsibility and Reputational Capital: JPMorgan Facing Criminal Investigation

After years of claiming that no criminality had been involved in the securitization and sales of subprime-mortgage-based bonds, the U.S. Department of Justice began to change its tune by mid-2013. The Justice Department was investigating the $2.6 trillion-in-assets JPMorgan Chase bank over its sale of mortgage securities from 2005 to 2007. The government was investigating other large financial institutions too, but the damage to JPMorgan’s reputation could easily dwarf such impacts on the other big banks. For this reason, JPMorgan’s executives, rather than having no comment as the bank released the news in quarterly filings, should have “taken the bull by the horns” by acting proactively in terms of corporate social responsibility.



"Ok, I lied to clients about the bonds, but we had a deal: No Jail Time!"  Image Source: serenity-international.com

The full essay is at "JPMorgan: An Unethical Monstrosity?"