JP Morgan Chase, ready for new fines after paying over $1bn in legal charges

The biggest bank in the US, JP Morgan Chase, signalled it had to face a fresh wave of fines after incurring more than $1bn in legal charges in the last quarter of 2014.

Since the financial crisis, the bank has already been hit by a wave of litigation and penalties. It was also revealed that the average pay of the staff in its investment banking arm was $204,365, in 2014.

Although its boss, Jamie Dimon, said it had been record year for the firm, with income reported at $21.8bn, up from $17.9bn a year ago, the first of the major US banks to report its profits for last year did not meet expectations of analysts.

It was among six major banks hit with £2.6bn of penalties in November for rigging the foreign exchange markets, where £3.5tn changes hands each day. Dimon is one of the few bosses to retain their roles after the crisis.

The legal expenses incurred in the fourth quarter are expected to be related to outstanding settlements JP Morgan faces for manipulation of foreign exchange markets, as The Guardian reports.

At the beginning of 2015 the bank became the first to settle civil charges in relation to these markets, having already paid $660m to settle charges from regulators for manipulating these markets.

The average pay of $204,365 in the investment bank in 2014 compares with $207,368 a year earlier while average pay across the bank, which employs 250,000, was $124,959 compared with $122,653 in 2013.

The legal expenses in the fourth quarter undermined performance in the last three months of 2014 alongside a rise in bad debt charges and a drop in revenue from its investment banking arm, which includes its bond trading division.

The markets division was described as challenged. Investment banking fees were up 8% on the prior year fourth quarter but this was partially offset by lower fees from equity underwriting, down 25%.