U.S. Moves to Drop Charges Against Ex-Traders in ‘London Whale’ Case

U.S. Moves to Drop Charges Against Ex-Traders in ‘London Whale’ Case
The filing simply said, “Based on a review of recent statements and writings made by Iksil, however, the government no longer believes
that it can rely on the testimony of Iksil in prosecuting this case.”
The decision by Mr. Bharara’s office to strike the deal with Mr. Iksil under which he was to testify as a cooperating witness was questioned
because he was the most closely identified with the trading losses.
The prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss charges against the bank employees, Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout, saying
that recent statements by a key cooperating witness, Bruno Iksil, had thrown the reliability of his testimony into doubt.
The original criminal complaints filed against Mr. Grout
and Mr. Martin-Artajo described Mr. Iksil as something of a lone dissenter within the bank when it came to dealing with mounting losses on a series of derivatives trades that went bad in 2011 and 2012.
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEINJULY 21, 2017
An effort to hold someone accountable for JPMorgan Chase’s loss of more than $6 billion in the so-called London Whale trading scandal is coming
to an end, with federal prosecutors in Manhattan moving on Friday to dismiss all criminal charges against two former bank employees.
Mr. Dimon did himself no favors when reports about the losses first emerged by dismissing the matter as a “tempest in a teapot.”
A year later, Mr. Bharara threw that language back at Mr. Dimon in announcing the filing of criminal charges against Mr. Grout and Mr. Martin-Artajo.