By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and BEN PROTESS
Two federal regulators are preparing a series of enforcement actions and fines against JPMorgan Chase stemming from its dealings with consumers during the recession in the latest legal woes facing the nation’s biggest bank.
The regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, plan to announce the actions as soon as next month, according to people briefed on the matter. Under the terms of the civil orders, the bank will have to acknowledge internal flaws and dole out at least $80 million in fines, said the people, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The most costly cases for JPMorgan center on concerns that the bank duped its credit card customers into buying products pitched as a way to shield them from identity theft. In separate actions reflecting their varied jurisdictions, the consumer bureau will levy a roughly $20 million fine, while the comptroller’s office is expected to extract about $60 million.
In another set of actions, the regulators are aiming at the bank for the way it collected overdue bills from consumers, the people said. It is unclear whether those cases will yield any fines.
Even if some fines are assessed, those penalties will barely nick the bottom line of the bank, which earned record profits in recent quarters. Yet the actions represent one element of a broader federal crackdown on JPMorgan…..