A dinner for two valued at $581. Almost $1,000 in laundry fees for one person. A Cookie Monster toddler toy. And no matter how many gummy bears you get, you'll get $529.
JPMorgan Chase has made it clear that it is not happy that its former chief executive, Charlie Javice, is demanding $73 million in legal fees from the bank to defend itself. Ultimately, she will be sentenced to 85 months in prison after being convicted of bank fraud.
But when the bank took over her now-defunct start-up in 2021, it also agreed to pay her legal fees if problems arose. The bank has asked a Delaware judge for permission to stop paying the bill as it continues to rise. And in the newly unredacted sections of its attempt to cut them off, JPMorgan provides the evidence.
Aside from incidental costs — and the bank says there are many more, including for nutritional supplements, lamps and 57 hotel room upgrade fees at $300 each — the bank's main goal is to shine a spotlight on legal fees.
JPMorgan said Ms. Javice asked the bank to make more than $43 million in advance payments to Quinn Emanuel, one of the firms she represents. Another $14 million will go to Jose Baez, who helped argue her case in federal court, and his law firm. Then there's over $5 million for Ronald Sullivan, who also represented her in the trial, and his team.
At one point during the trial, there were 29 so-called timekeepers — attorneys and others who may bill by the hour — in the courtroom, according to JPMorgan.
What did these people do all day? And can that number – and those dollar figures – possibly be reasonable?
When you're in that much trouble, it costs a lot of money to defend yourself. Ms. Javice is appealing her federal case. JPMorgan has sued them separately, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has also sued them. Now more lawyers will probably argue even more about how much the fight should cost.
“Javice's blatant disregard for JPMC is consistent with the way its army of 147 timekeepers have treated the promotion requirement as a blank check and suggests that Javice's promotion demands will continue to be the result of unaudited billing practices,” the bank said in a filing on Monday, referring to the total number of lawyers who have appeared on invoices to date.
Frank, her start-up, aims to help people fill out financial aid forms more easily. It may have done some of that for some, but when Ms. Javice tried to sell the company to JPMorgan, she told the bank that she had millions of customers.
The bank bought her story – and her company for $175 million. It quickly became clear that she had devised an elaborate ruse and had falsified a large portion of her client list. So the bank sued and an army of lawyers began bidding time on both sides. They are all expected to charge $175 million for this process before it is complete.
At a hearing last month, some individual issues were raised, including complaints about a receipt for cellulite butter. Juda Engelmayer, Ms. Javice's spokeswoman, said at the time that she had invited people to view photos of her in her Pilates clothing.
“It is obvious that she never purchased the so-called 'cellulite cream,'” he said in a statement last month. “The item was not hers and she was not invoiced for it.”
A spokesman for Quinn Emanuel declined to comment on the butter or its potential buyer, but offered a more general statement.
“JPMorgan is attempting to avoid its contractual obligation to pay Ms. Javice’s legal bills,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement. “Now it is attempting to create distraction by highlighting a handful of legal fees (not incurred by Ms. Javice) over a two-year period, the vast majority of which have already been audited and paid or are undisputed.”
The bank continues as it faces further bills from Ms Javice and her former managing director Olivier Amar, who was also sentenced to prison.
“This is the latest example that the legal fees requested by Javice and Amar were more than patently excessive and outrageous,” a JPMorgan spokesman, Pablo Rodriguez, said in an email.
Susan C. Beachy contributed to the research.