JPMorgan sued over employee retirement plan losses in the US
JP MORGAN Chase & Co has been hit with a lawsuit brought on behalf of employees whose retirement holdings fell in value after the largest US bank revealed a surprise $2bn (£1.3bn) trading loss earlier this month.
The complaint, filed in the US District Court in Manhattan, also names individual defendants, including chief executive Jamie Dimon and Ina Drew, who stepped down last week as head of JPMorgan’s chief investment office, where the loss occurred.
The defendants were accused of violating their duties to 401(k) and other retirement plan participants by including company stock as an investment option, hiding the stock’s risk, and failing to move participants to safer choices.
“The plans suffered hundreds of millions of dollars of losses,” the complaint said. “If defendants had discharged their fiduciary duties to prudently manage and invest the plans’ assets, the losses suffered by the plans would have been minimized or avoided.”
JPMorgan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.