Apparently a bunch of Wall Street executives is suing JP Morgan for a few billion, alleging fraud concerning sub-prime mortgages. This happened to AIG too. The trouble is that the executives who committed the fraud are not indicted and have suffered little if any consequence of their alleged criminal fraud. It is the people owning the shares in these companies that are getting penalised. As well as executives with share options and “old money” holdings, many of JPMorgan shareholders are pension funds and retirees an Occupy Wall Streeter might be looking out for, as Sheelah Kolhatkar of Bloomberg Businessweek notes. The fines, if any come out of the value of the shares of JPMorgan and go to other fiduciaries, who were probably complicit in the fraud given the way the industry works.
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