JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s $13 billion fraud settlement with the U.S. can’t be blocked by a watchdog group because it couldn’t prove it was harmed by the deal.
Better Markets Inc.’s lawsuit challenging the U.S Justice Department’s agreement with the bank was dismissed by a federal judge. The group, founded by a hedge fund manager, “failed to meet its burden to show it has suffered an injury in fact, and consequently it cannot demonstrate standing,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington ruled.
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Howell’s decision Wednesday doesn’t address the merits of Better Markets’s complaint, Dennis Kelleher, the group’s president and chief executive officer, said in an e-mailed statement.
Under the decision, “no one has standing to challenge DOJ’s actions even when senior political appointees secretly negotiate legal immunity in exchange for a $13 billion payment from the country’s largest, most politically connected too-big-to-fail Wall Street bank,” Kelleher said. Better Markets hasn’t decided whether to appeal, he said.
Read the full Bloomberg article by Andrew Zajac here.
