Really, let’s keep debanking in the news.
Hours before the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published a 47-page report detailing nine banks’ missteps with regard to alleged wrongful account closures, the largest of those banks urged a federal court to throw out a lawsuit brought by the debanked-in-chief.
Lawyers for JPMorgan Chase argued Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s claims against the bank would “fail – multiple times over – and should be dismissed with prejudice.”
Trump sued JPMorgan and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, in a Florida court in January, accusing the bank of trade libel and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Trump also accused Dimon of violating Florida’s unfair and deceptive trade practices act by directing JPMorgan to put the plaintiffs on a “blacklist,” which allegedly was “published” to other, unnamed banks.
JPMorgan’s lawyers in February argued the plaintiffs “do not explain what this ‘blacklist’ entails, when it was created, to whom it was supposedly circulated, or any other detail describing it.
“If and when Plaintiffs explain what they mean by this ‘blacklist,’ JPMorgan will respond accordingly,” the bank’s lawyers wrote at the time.
Now that the case has moved to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan’s lawyers are amplifying their stance.
“Plaintiffs’ allegations regarding the alleged ‘blacklist’ are so bare that it is impossible to determine what JPMorgan allegedly stated, when, or to whom,” the bank’s lawyers wrote Tuesday.
JPMorgan’s lawyers explicitly denied allegations that the bank closed Trump-tied accounts for political reasons or placed them on such a list.
One of Trump’s personal accounts with JPMorgan remains, the bank argued, adding that several plaintiffs have opened new accounts with JPMorgan.
“Moreover, as far as Defendants can tell, no ‘blacklist’ matching the Complaint’s description exists, which is why Plaintiffs cannot identify one,” JPMorgan’s lawyers wrote. “However, at this stage, the Court need not weigh the veracity of Plaintiffs’ allegations, nor accept Plaintiffs’ invitation to engage in a policy debate on access to banking. Under well-settled law, even treating Plaintiffs’ allegations as true, those allegations fail to state any claim cognizable at law.”
The bank acknowledged the account agreements the plaintiffs signed “expressly allowed the Bank to close their accounts for any reason (or no reason at all).”
“They cannot (and do not) claim any breach of the express terms of those agreements,” JPMorgan’s lawyers wrote. “Instead, Plaintiffs claim JPMorgan breached an implied contract term, but settled law dictates that an implied contract term may not countermand a contract’s express terms.”
The bank noted, too, that the statute of limitations has run out on both the breach-of-covenant and trade libel claims. Further, the latter “is insufficiently pled,” JPMorgan asserted.
JPMorgan also argued that Dimon should be excluded from the suit, noting that Trump’s claim against him “has already been found legally deficient.”
