On May 15, 2012, a shareholder filed a class action complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of purchasers of common stock in JPMorgan Chase & Co. between April 13, 2012 and May 10, 2012 inclusive.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that occurred when Defendants issued materially false and misleading statements regarding the losses and risk of loss to the company arising from massive bets on derivative contracts related to credit indexes reflecting interest rates on corporate bonds.  These derivative bets went horribly wrong, resulting in billions of dollars in lost capital for the company and billions more in lost market capitalization for JPMorgan shareholders. Read more…

On May 16, 2012, the parties advised the court that on May 11, 2012, with the help of the Hon. Edward A. Infante (Ret.) of JAMS, the parties reached an agreement in principle to resolve a class action filed by Chase credit card customers against Chase that I had previously written about on this blog.

About a year ago, on May 13, 2011, the District Court of the Northern District of California certified this case as a class action.  Chase credit card customers allege in the complaint that they were offered balance transfer loans or loans in the form of blank checks that were connected to their credit cards, but with different terms.  The plaintiffs also claim that the promotional rate loans offered by Chase had terms that were at low interest rates usually with APRs or interest rates set at 2.99% or 3.99% “for the life of the loan.”  Read more…