By Jeanine Prezioso
NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.S. federal energy regulators threatened on Thursday to suspend JPMorgan Chase & Co's right to sell electricity at market rates after accusing the bank of misleading authorities -- a measure that would effectively banish it from the power market.
The move by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the latest salvo in a months-long enquiry into whether the bank, one of the biggest power traders on Wall Street, manipulated power prices in the Midwest and California power markets.
In the past year, the regulator has increased its investigations into power market manipulation allegations against banks, including Deutsche Bank and Barclays PLC.
If JPMorgan's right to sell power at market-based rates is revoked, it would be forced to sell power at-cost, or at a significantly lower rate. Awwwwww!
The commission said the bank violated regulations under the Federal Power Act by submitting misleading information and omitting facts in dealings with the regulator and California's electricity grid operator on four separate occasions over the past 11 months.
In response, JPMorgan said it had made an "inadvertent factual error in papers related to discovery and promptly informed the commission of this mistake."
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Read more here: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/ferc-jpmorgan-idINL1E8KKJFG20120921
Sins, like chickens, come home to roost!
Couldn't happen to better people, IMHO.