JPMorgan Agrees to $290M Settlement With Epstein Victims

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Facts

  • JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, has reached a tentative agreement to settle a class action lawsuit by victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse, claiming that the bank enabled its former client’s crimes.1
  • The reported $290M settlement came just before a Manhattan US District Court judge ruled that the case could proceed as a class-action lawsuit. While the settlement did not include an admission of liability from the bank, JPMorgan publicly stated it regretted its association with the late Epstein.2
  • JPMorgan released a statement that called out Epstein’s “monstrous behavior,” adding that it “believe[s] this settlement is in the best interest of all parties, especially the survivors." The bank also called its association with Epstein a “mistake” that it regrets.3
  • The case ramped up in the preceding weeks when JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon testified under oath that he did not know much of Epstein until his arrest and didn’t discuss Epstein’s account with other JPMorgan officials. This includes former executive Jes Staley, who is being sued for allegedly concealing information about Epstein.4
  • The settled suit was filed last November by an anonymous woman referred to as "Jane Doe" in the court filings and is one of two lawsuits against JPMorgan for its relationship with Epstein. The settlement is still pending the approval of a Manhattan federal judge.5
  • JPMorgan serviced Epstein from 1998 to 2013, seven years after the sex criminal’s 2006 arrest. Last month, Deutsche Bank, where Epstein was a client from 2013 to 2018, agreed to a similar settlement for $75M; JPMorgan still has a pending case with the US Virgin Islands.6

Sources: 1CNN, 2CNBC, 3Guardian, 4Reuters, 5Yahoo Finance, and 6Al Jazeera.

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by New York Times. Hopefully, Monday’s agreement is an end to at least part of JPMorgan’s ongoing lawsuits involving its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The bank has publicly admitted it deeply regrets keeping such a monster as a client and has worked to compensate Epstein's victims as best as possible. The entire media circus that has been present since Epstein’s 2019 arrest and suicide has done more harm than good, and hopefully this settlement can put Epstein and his terrible crimes in the rearview mirror for JPMorgan and many others.
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by ZeroHedge. JPMorgan may have settled one of its cases with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, but there’s a lot more under the hood when considering Epstein’s relationship with the bank, its former employee Jes Staley, and the sworn testimony of CEO Jamie Dimon. JPMorgan worked with Epstein for 15 years — many of those years after his first arrest for sex crimes. Now bank executives are claiming to not know Epstein at all. Just like many other wealthy and powerful people, this is just the tip of the iceberg in the Epstein saga.