In MF Global, JPMorgan again at center of a financial failure

JPMorgan's "cliff-pushing" behavior is getting harder to hide:

JPMorgan was a primary banker for MF Global, a role that gave it significant insight into, and control over, MF Global's accounts.

On the other side, JPMorgan was clearing some of the asset sales MF Global was making. In this role, its job was to take the securities from MF Global and the cash from the buyer and pass them along to the other party when the deal was complete .

Normally such trades can settle within a day or two, if the back-office mechanics function smoothly. But that week, the money didn't arrive when MF Global executives expected, according to people familiar with the situation.

We doubt most of our readers are surprised. Curious about what happened with the "official" investigation of the similar Lehman "event"? Well...

In 2008, a week before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sought bankruptcy protection, JPMorgan demanded collateral to protect its role as counterparty to Lehman. While the request was not improper, Lehman's bankruptcy estate later claimed Lehman posted the collateral because JPMorgan had threatened to withhold funding.

A Congressional panel that looked at the 2008 crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, investigated the events surrounding Lehman's fall in a 2011 report. A JPMorgan official told the FCIC that the bank didn't believe "the request put undue pressure on Lehman," the report said. The FCIC didn't draw a conclusion about the incident.

That's it. The commission simply took JP Morgan's word for their own contribution to Lehman's collapse. That's some fine investigatin', boyz.

There's a lot more... read the whole article.

(P.S. - And we won't even talk about JP Morgan's role in Amaranth...