JPMorgan role in Lehman collapse - ZeroHedge

"In the days before Lehman filed for bankruptcy, JPM, which was a tri-party clearing bank, in a relationship we discussed long before most had even heard the name Anton Valuklas in our piece from October "A Rare Glimpse Into The Fed's Discount Window Courtesy of The Brewing Lehman-Barclays Scandal", started to escalate its collateral demands, in a foreshadowing of what was soon going to happen to AIG. Notwithstanding that this action may result in credible legal action against JPM, as, in the words of Valukas, "The Examiner concludes that there may be a colorable claim against one clearing bank – JPMorgan – arising from these collateral demands in 2008", we uncover something quite brilliant as to the quality of assets backing up collateral posted in the tri-party repo system. Note this is not the Repo 105 synthetic contraption, which apparently nobody had heard about before, not Geithner, not anybody at the FRBNY, not even Dick Fuld; this is a pure plain vanilla matched repo obligation, and a core component of the $3 trillion shadow banking system, which again was the topic of our prior post on this topic. Back then we ventured to guess that nearly worthless assets are used "on occassion" by assorted tri-party repo participants, and collateralized by JPM as clearing party, and ultimately by the Fed as end party on the other side of a tri-party repo. Little did we know just how far the stench went, and that worthless assets (and we do mean worthless) are very likely the norm. To wit from the report:

"On September 11, JPMorgan executives met to discuss significant valuation problems with securities that Lehman had posted as collateral over the summer. JPMorgan concluded that the collateral was not worth nearly what Lehman had claimed it was worth, and decided to request an additional $5 billion in cash collateral from Lehman that day. The request was communicated in an executive?level phone call, and Lehman posted $5 billion in cash to JPMorgan by the afternoon of Friday, September 12. Around the same time, JPMorgan learned that a security known as Fenway, which Lehman had posted to JPMorgan at a stated value of $3 billion, was actually asset?backed commercial paper credit?enhanced by Lehman (that is, it was Lehman, rather than a third party, that effectively guaranteed principal and interest payments). JPMorgan concluded that Fenway was worth practically nothing as collateral.

"Oh, and just in case Lehman creditors and owners of billions of Lehman sub claims trading in the low double digits feel like suing someone, we fully expect that Jamie Dimon will soon be getting a summons. From the examiner:

Finally, the Examiner concludes that the evidence may support the existence of a colorable claim – but not a strong claim – that JPMorgan breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by making excessive collateral requests to Lehman in September 2008. A trier of fact would have to consider evidence that the collateral requests were reasonable and that Lehman waived any claims by complying with the requests.

More to come.