The Morning Risk Report: JPMorgan's $4 Million 'Salami Incident' Is Fueling a Backlash From Banks By David Smagalla | Dow Jones Risk Journal
Good morning. It turned into a Wall Street punchline, but big banks aren't laughing .
The case: After JPMorgan fired a wealth manager for expensing a $642.50 Super Bowl platter, the employee claimed he was wrongfully terminated, saying he had intended the spread of deli meats and cookies for clients who didn't show up. In May, the employee won $4.25 million in the case that became known as the "salami incident."
Banks fight back: Now, big banks have had enough of these sorts of claims and want to make sure they are never again vulnerable to them. JPMorgan filed a motion late Monday in a California federal court to vacate the award to its former wealth adviser, Brent Ryan Bodner, over the deli meats gone awry. The award, the bank argued, was "lawless" and misrepresented the reason for his firing.
Finra also in their sights: Another apparent target of JPMorgan's filing: the watchdog group that awarded him the sum. The bank said Bodner took advantage of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's rules to engineer a high payout. Finra, the industry's self-policing group, adjudicates disputes among advisers, brokers, investors and institutions.
Reining in Finra: The bank's dig at Finra reflects a broader push on Wall Street to rein in the organization, whose arbitration panels rule on everything including defamation claims, whether investments were too risky for a client or if a broker is a "Wolf of Wall Street" type who needs to be punished. Compliance
New forever chemicals labeling rule kicks in for cosmetics, apparel.
Connecticut is the latest state to implement rules
barring companies from manufacturing or selling products containing forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, reports Risk Journal's Clara Hudson. But the new state law takes a staggered approach for businesses to comply (free link).
The Connecticut rule, beginning July 1, prohibits businesses that sell and manufacture in the state from adding PFAS into their goods unless they have notified a state agency, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. It is part of an effort to ultimately phase out the use of forever chemicals in the state, but for now, companies that have reported PFAS have to label products that contain the chemicals so buyers are aware.
Merrill Lynch fined $7.5 million for failing to flag suspicious activity.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fined Bank of America investment unit Merrill Lynch $7.5 million
for failing to flag suspicious account activity to federal authorities, Risk Journal reports (free link).
The allegations: Merrill failed to report potentially suspicious activity numerous times between 2020 and 2024 because it relied on BofA's improperly calibrated, enterprisewide transaction screening tools to help fulfill its compliance obligations under U.S. anti-money-laundering laws, the SEC said on Monday. The fine marked the second time the broker-dealer has resolved anti-money-laundering failures with U.S. authorities in recent years.
The Trump administration and Anthropic have reached an agreement
to restore access to the company's most recent general-access artificial-intelligence model, resolving a fight that showed how the White House is intervening to address security concerns in the fast-growing industry.
Three large egg producers agreed to settle claims of market manipulation
by donating over 50 million eggs and paying $3.3 million to states.
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned two Mexican nationals
and nine affiliated businesses for allegedly orchestrating oil theft schemes that earned the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación tens of millions of dollars annually, according to Risk Journal (free link).
The European Union extended its sanctions
against individuals and entities threatening peace, stability and democracy in Haiti until July 29, 2027 (free link).
Paramount Skydance offered the European Union's merger watchdog concessions
to ease competition concerns as officials look into its planned $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery.
The European Union antitrust body said it opened an investigation into U.S. medical-device maker Align Technology
to assess whether the company's sales strategy for teeth aligner Invisalign and dental scanners broke competition rules.
Mystery traders used advance knowledge of a Chinese brokerage crackdown to make more than $100 million
in profit from well-timed options trades, one of the world's biggest electronic-trading firms alleged in a lawsuit.
Federal aviation regulators are preparing to mandate the use of technology that would help pilots see nearby aircraft , a fix that safety advocates have sought since a deadly midair collision in Washington, D.C., last year.
Ford Motor is recalling more than 740,000 vehicles
due to a transmission and parking system issue, federal regulators said.
U.S. officials are allowing Zyn to market itself as being less harmful than traditional cigarettes , making the product the first nicotine pouch on the market to be granted such a distinction.
Galderma failed to obtain approval
from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its latest product to rival AbbVie's Botox for the second time.
Warren Buffett is skipping his usual midyear donation
to the Gates Foundation, awaiting findings of a review into its Jeffrey Epstein ties. Risk
Iran's diverging priorities are jeopardizing U.S. peace talks.
A power struggle inside Tehran is threatening U.S.-Iran peace talks , with civilian leaders seeking billions in frozen assets and hardline military officials pressing for control of the Strait of Hormuz, said officials familiar with the negotiations.
The split: Civilian leaders headed by President Masoud Pezeshkian are aiming to free up billions of dollars in frozen funds to bring some relief to the millions of Iranians struggling with the economic aftershocks of the war and the critical damage to its oil industry. Others have their own ideas, notably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which aims to keep full control of the critical strait no matter what the cost.
Trump Briefed on All-Out War Options in Iran but Opts to Stick With Talks
Drug companies asked to turn over information on China trials.
Risk Journal reports: A leading U.S. lawmaker asked drugmakers Pfizer, AbbVie, Merck and Eli Lilly to turn over information on clinical trials it conducted in China , including in alleged forced-labor hotbed Xinjiang, saying the practice presents ethical and security risks (free link).
The companies should turn over a detailed briefing on their due diligence processes, policies, internal risk assessments and other documentation connected with their decisions to run trials in China, Rep. John Moolenaar (R., Mich.), chair of the China Select Committee, said in letters to company leadership made public Tuesday.
Why they're doing this: There isn't evidence any of the four companies engaged in illegal activity or wrongdoing, Moolenaar said. But conducting trials in China exposes U.S. companies to ethical and security risks that can't necessarily be mitigated by due diligence, he said.
If there's one thing companies know how to do, it's slam on the brakes when spending starts to run hot. But artificial intelligence is testing that instinct . AI costs are climbing, though most tech leaders remain convinced it can eventually deliver real returns-just not at any price.
The Trump administration is using earthquake relief efforts in Venezuela to bolster its alliance
with acting president Delcy Rodríguez's interim government, despite widespread public anger.
Argentine Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni resigned
amid scrutiny over his finances, raising questions about President Javier Milei's government.
The United Nations said it will avoid imminent financial collapse
by changing a budget rule that had forced it to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, primarily because of nonpayment by the U.S. or late payments from China.
Global supply of liquefied natural gas could contract
this year if disruption in the Strait of Hormuz continues for a prolonged period, according to British energy major Shell.
China's manufacturing activity expanded
in June after remaining flat last month, thanks in part to resilient exports amid robust global demand for artificial-intelligence and green products. What Else Matters The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down
President Trump's attempt to curtail birthright citizenship, rejecting an audacious anti-immigration initiative to reinterpret the constitutional principle that almost everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen.
A New Jersey congressman who was absent from the Capitol for nearly four months disclosed Tuesday that he had been diagnosed with depression .
The Trump administration is prepping a financial lifeline
for smaller meatpackers struggling with dwindling cattle supplies, which have sent beef prices surging.
Nike recorded another sales decline
in the latest quarter as it continued to hit hurdles with weakness in China.
America knows how to manufacture millionaires . About Us
Follow us on LinkedIn . Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at [max.fillion@dowjones.com], Clara Hudson at [clara.hudson@wsj.com], Yusuf Khan at [yusuf.khan@wsj.com] and Richard Vanderford at [richard.vanderford@wsj.com].
You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editors Perry Cleveland-Peck at and David Smagalla at [david.smagalla@wsj.com].
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.