JPMorgan Chase Spends $2,140,000,000 Battling Bank Lawsuits and Federal Agencies in Two Years: Report

New filings from JPMorgan Chase reveal how much money the biggest bank in the US is spending on legal battles.

The bank’s new 8-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show the firm spent $2.14 billion on legal expenses in the last two years.

That breaks down to $1.4 billion for the full year across 2023 and $740 million in 2024.

The figures include JPMorgan’s recent major settlement with the SEC, with the bank paying $151 million in combined civil penalties and voluntary payments to investors.

Those payments settled allegations that the bank misled investors, favored its own financial interests over clients and engaged in prohibited trades.

JPMorgan also faced litigation in 2023 and 2024 tied to Jeffrey Epstein, including actions by victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which resulted in substantial settlements.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the latest US agency to file a lawsuit against the bank.

Last month, the CFPB sued JPMorgan Chase along with Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Zelle over alleged failures to properly address widespread fraud and unauthorized transactions on the Zelle platform.

Back in June, Chase warned that proposed regulations from the CFPB and the Federal Reserve, including new caps on credit and debit card late fees and higher capital reserves, could push the bank to eliminate free checking services.

In total, JPMorgan has paid more than $40 billion in fines and settlements to regulators, enforcement agencies and lawsuits related to anti-competitive practices, securities abuses and other violations.

That’s according to new numbers from the public Violation Tracker, a corporate misconduct database that tracks cases from the year 2000 until now.

In its latest earnings report, Chase says it earned $14 billion in profit in the fourth quarter of 2024, while posting its largest-ever annual profit at $58.5 billion.

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