“On February 10, Better Markets filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in DC challenging the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) unilateral, historic and unprecedented $13 billion settlement with JP Morgan Chase. It is the largest settlement with a single entity in the history of the country and involved the biggest, richest and most politically well-connected bank in the county. Yet, that agreement was a mere contract and was not reviewed or approved by any court. And, it gave JP Morgan Chase complete civil immunity for years of alleged pervasive, egregious and knowing fraudulent and illegal conduct, which contributed to the worst financial crash since 1929 and the worst economy since the 1930’s. Adding insult to injury, this deal was cut in secret by the DOJ and JP Morgan Chase with the DOJ acting as investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury, sentence and collector without any independent review by a judge. This violates the constitutional separation of powers because there are no checks and balances on the back room deals that DOJ cuts with Wall Street.  Making matters worse, the agreement fails to disclose any meaningful information about JP Morgan Chase’s alleged widespread illegal conduct. In fact, the deal was clearly carefully crafted more to conceal than reveal. As a result, there is no publicly available information that would enable anyone to determine if the agreement is, as the DOJ claims, tough, or just another sweetheart settlement for a Wall Street bank. Given the DOJ’s motive and self-interest in burnishing its record of failure to go after Wall Street, its claims about the settlement must be reviewed by an independent court. Here is more information on the lawsuit…”