Regulators

During JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s quarterly earnings conference call last month, Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein seemed to assure listeners that they shouldn't worry, because regulators knew everything the company was doing. "We are very comfortable with our positions as they are held today, and I would add that all of those positions are fully transparent to the regulators," Braunstein said on April 13. "They review them, have access to them at any point in time," and "get the information on those positions on a regular and recurring basis as part of our normalized reporting.

The epic fight over Philadelphia's defunct Meritor Savings Bank moved closer to a conclusion Friday, nearly 19 years after federal regulators seized the bank. The Department of Justice decided not to ask for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing in a long-running lawsuit that resulted in a $276 million judgment in 2009 against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for illegally taking over Meritor, which operated as Philadelphia Saving Fund Society for 176 years. The decision clears the way for an estimated 3,000 shareholders - many of whom worked at the institution founded in 1816 and who own just a few hundred shares each - to collect roughly $4.50 per share.

In the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal, as in other scams of our age of go-go finance (including the S&L debacle), it would appear that regulators everywhere took their sweet time detecting the pollution. As usual there is in BCCI's exposure and indictment as a criminal enterprise the sound of barn doors resolutely slammed behind long-escaped horses. BCCI, in case you missed the details, is the huge international banking operation - founded in Pakistan, chartered in Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, and headquartered in the City of London - whose operations bank regulators shut down earlier this month.

Parke Bank, of Sewell, said it reached agreements with federal and state regulators that require it to clean up its balance sheet by eliminating assets from its books that have already been classified as a loss, among other measures. The bank entered into the consent orders with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance after a recent regulatory examination. Parke had net loans of $605.79 million on Dec. 31 and reported net income of $7.27 million for the year.

Federal regulators yesterday took over Springfield Federal Savings & Loan Association, removing the Delaware County S&L's top officers and installing a management team from the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency that runs or closes failed thrifts. The Office of Thrift Supervision said it had acted because Springfield Federal had been "operating in an unsafe and unsound condition" and had nearly run out of capital. The federal agency blamed Springfield's problems on "inadequate internal controls" as well as "losses on poorly underwritten commercial loans" and loans for real estate development.

State regulators closed the Pulaski Savings Bank in Philadelphia yesterday, saying that fraudulent loan activity had made the small institution insolvent. The bank's only office, on Orthodox Street in the Northeast, will reopen Monday as a branch of Earthstar Bank, Southampton, Bucks County. Pulaski held deposits of $9 million. William Schenck, the state's secretary of banking, declined to elaborate on the fraudulent loans. "It was senior management," he said late yesterday.

Casino gambling has gone corporate and New Jersey's gaming regulators might be better served with a degree from the Wharton School rather than one from the state police academy. That was the message yesterday from Anthony J. Parrillo, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, in an appearance at the monthly Atlantic City Press Club luncheon. "Pending sales, new partnerships, corporate mergers and financial restructurings - all reflecting a period of consolidation and reorganization in a maturing casino industry - have brought to the fore new areas of concern for regulators," Parrillo said.

A small political flap has erupted over a planned meeting in Detroit of utility company executives and top regulatory officials from Michigan, Pennsylvania and several other states. Environmental advocacy groups - none of which were invited - contend the meeting was put together by Republicans who want to weaken environmental enforcement standards if Texas Gov. George W. Bush wins the presidency. Bush aides and state officials say this is nonsense. "There they go again," said Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters.

State insurance regulators have seized and closed a West Chester life insurance company that they said had been insolvent for nearly three years. Commonwealth Court had allowed Corporate Life Insurance Co., based at 893 S. Matlack St., West Chester, to continue selling policies until this week. Officials of the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance took over Corporate Life, a $275 million company, Tuesday evening, dismissed its officers and its lawyers and announced that the company would be liquidated.

Looking for an investment opportunity? How about this: chic Parisian boutiques in one of Denver's grittiest neighborhoods? A glistening fountain bubbling outside a rotting warehouse? An upscale shopping and office complex miles from the center of town? It'll cost you only $90 million. No, thank you? Too late. Thanks to a loan made by Hill Financial Savings Association of Red Hill, Montgomery County, you and all the other American taxpayers have paid $90 million for it. And you never will be able to get your money back.

After months of silence on the issue, Gov. Christie said Thursday that he was moving forward on regulations to install sports betting in Atlantic City casinos and at New Jersey's racetracks. The addition of sports gambling would "further enhance the experience of people in Atlantic City," the Republican governor told a Boardwalk crowd during a visit to tout Shore tourism. "I know it's something people have been waiting for for a long time. " A ballot referendum to change New Jersey's constitution to allow wagering on certain NFL and collegiate sports at the state's casinos and racetracks passed 2:1 in November.

During JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s quarterly earnings conference call last month, Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein seemed to assure listeners that they shouldn't worry, because regulators knew everything the company was doing. "We are very comfortable with our positions as they are held today, and I would add that all of those positions are fully transparent to the regulators," Braunstein said on April 13. "They review them, have access to them at any point in time," and "get the information on those positions on a regular and recurring basis as part of our normalized reporting.

EVEN THOUGH we hoped it had been neutralized, a grave threat to national security still exists. No, it's not al Qaeda and it's not Iran. Short of acquiring a stray nuke, neither one of those entities could do nearly as much damage as the reckless gambling by big banks that almost blew up the world economy three years ago. But even now when the danger has been revealed, some people want to ignore it. That's the message from Jamie Dimon,...

PPL Corp. has fundamentally repositioned itself in two years to concentrate its business on rate-regulated utilities rather than the more volatile power-generation sector, William H. Spence, PPL chairman and chief executive, told shareholders at its annual meeting Wednesday in Bethlehem. The Allentown company, which operates PPL Electric Utilities in Pennsylvania, acquired utilities in Kentucky and the United Kingdom in the last two years and projects that 70 percent of its earnings this year will come from rate-regulated businesses.

A federal district judge sitting in Harrisburg has thrown out decades-old state regulations governing Pennsylvania funeral homes, saying they held down competition while substantially boosting costs. Judge John E. Jones III, ruling in a four-year-old lawsuit that a York-area funeral director and others brought against individual members of the Pennsylvania State Board of Funeral Directors, essentially endorsed the plaintiffs' allegations that regulators walled the funeral business off from competition by restricting the entry of out-of-state operators, imposed rules that made it difficult for funeral homes to operate efficiently, and even went so far as to improperly impose restrictions on funeral home names.

WASHINGTON - A surprise $2 billion trading loss by a division of JPMorgan Chase triggered calls Friday for tougher regulation of banks three years after their near-death experience in the financial crisis. Shares in the bank, the largest in the United States, lost 9.3 percent of their value and pulled other financial stocks lower for the day, as well. JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Thursday that it lost the money in a trading group designed to manage the risks that it takes with its own money.

WASHINGTON - The Senate rejected a Republican attempt Tuesday to overturn new regulations designed to give unions quicker representation elections in their effort to organize more workplaces. The 54-45, largely party line vote against a resolution of disapproval leaves intact National Labor Relations Board rules that are scheduled to take effect April 30. Among Philadelphia-area senators, only Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) supported the resolution. Unions had sought the rules changes while business groups opposed them.

WASHINGTON - President Obama pushed Congress Tuesday to give oil-market regulators more muscle to deter price manipulation by speculators, the latest White House response to determined Republican attacks on administration energy policies amid high gas prices at the pump. Obama wants Congress to strengthen federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation, and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission announced Monday it will hold a forum May 31 in Philadelphia to examine policy issues related to the increased use of vehicles powered by electricity and natural gas. Pennsylvania has become a center of natural gas production because of the Marcellus Shale formation, PUC Chairman Robert F. Powelson said in a statement. "This activity, the corresponding drop in electric generation prices coupled with the appreciation of oil prices, has clarified the need for the PUC to explore policies and regulatory frameworks that can support investments in natural gas and electric vehicles.

Parke Bank, of Sewell, said it reached agreements with federal and state regulators that require it to clean up its balance sheet by eliminating assets from its books that have already been classified as a loss, among other measures. The bank entered into the consent orders with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance after a recent regulatory examination. Parke had net loans of $605.79 million on Dec. 31 and reported net income of $7.27 million for the year.