In 2018 and 2019, as JPMorgan Chase bankers chased lucrative mandates from an aggressively expanding WeWork, they fired off messages to one of their most high-profile clients at a frenetic pace. But as they did so, they broke rules governing communications on Wall Street.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission — in an early flashpoint of an investigation that has spread across Wall Street — found that JPMorgan failed to track more than 21,000 texts and emails, sent and received on personal phones or through unapproved apps, related to the co-working company, according to people familiar with the matter.
The investigation, which became public last year, has ensnared a growing number of banks, which are preparing to pay more than $1bn in fines to the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, dwarfing earlier penalties for record-keeping breaches.