SEC v. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (2021)

Settled

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 3, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In December 2021 the SEC settled with J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, which admitted the facts, over widespread failure to preserve business text, WhatsApp and personal email messages that employees at all levels sent on personal devices from 2018 to 2020. The firm was censured, ordered to pay a $125 million civil penalty and to retain a compliance consultant. The case is about recordkeeping and supervision, not manipulation.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$125m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$125m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued this settled order on December 17, 2021 in administrative proceeding 3-20681. The respondent is J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (0 individuals, 1 entity), which admitted the facts in the order and acknowledged that its conduct violated the securities laws.

The order finds that from at least January 2018 through at least November 2020 JPMorgan employees, including senior staff, regularly discussed securities business over text messaging applications such as WhatsApp and personal email accounts on personal devices, and the firm preserved none of those records, in violation of Exchange Act Section 17(a) and Rules 17a-4(b)(4) and 17a-4(j). Some could not be produced promptly to the SEC. Supervisors themselves used the channels, and the firm was found to have failed reasonably to supervise under Section 15(b)(4)(E).

JPMorgan was censured, ordered to cease and desist, and ordered to pay a $125 million civil penalty, and it undertook to retain a compliance consultant and strengthen its communications policies. This library's earlier tag, chat group pumps, was applied because the order concerns messaging apps; the order alleges no price manipulation, so no technique tag applies.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above.

Timeline

1. 2021-12-17 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC order

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.