The Treasury Department's inspector general has threatened to punish JPMorgan Chase & Co. for failing to turn over documents to regulators investigating the bank’s ties to Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, Bloomberg News reported today. Inspector General Eric Thorson gave the largest U.S. bank a Jan. 11 deadline to cooperate with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency probe or risk sanctions for impeding the agency’s oversight. JPMorgan, according to the Dec. 21 letter, contends the information is protected by attorney-client privilege. Thorson’s letter did not spell out what documents the OCC is seeking or the focus of its investigation. Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence after confessing to the fraud that once claimed to have $65 billion in customer assets.
