JPMorgan’s List Of Reasons For Firing Mouthy Compliance Officers Look An Awful Lot Like Anti-Whistleblower Retaliation
JPMorgan Chase doesn’t like the suggestion that it would fire a newly-hired compliance officer for, you know, attempting to make the bank compliant. And not only because Shaquala Williams is suing it for just that, but also getting rather detailed about all of the ways it was violating its deal with the Justice Department over hiring all of those Chinese princelings in alleged pursuit of Chinese business. Ways like refusing to do anything about its allegedly shoddy sanctions screening software, shitty record-keeping, continued bribe-paying and lying to regulators.
Unfortunately for Jamie Dimon & co., all of those “performance reasons” they cited for canning Williams and subjecting her to a fate worse than unemployment—working for Wells Fargo’s compliance department—sound an awful lot to Judge Jed Rakoff like proper performance of the job of a compliance officer.
The allegedly problematic behavior the bank described, he said, was inextricably intertwined with activity protected under the whistleblower anti-retaliation law, supporting Ms. Williams’s case.
JPMorgan now has about four months to pay Williams to go away to avoid having to testify that she was fired for being so rigidly insistent that it not keeping violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as part of its business plan.
JPMorgan Must Face Former Compliance Employee’s Lawsuit, Judge Rules [WSJ]
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