Regulator: JP Morgan Had ‘Inadequate’ Risk Controls

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top federal regulator says JPMorgan Chase had weak controls in place to contain risk in its investment division that suffered a $2 billion-plus trading loss.

U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry is telling a Senate panel that the nation’s largest bank began reducing the amount of hedging it was doing to minimize potential losses at the end of 2011. Curry’s agency is examining JPMorgan’s risk-containment policies in the weeks before it suffered the trading loss this spring.

Curry told the Senate Banking Committee that “inadequate risk management” was the problem.

Senators pressed Curry to explain why regulators weren’t able to detect the risks that led to the loss earlier.