U.S. prosecutors are reviewing stock trading by some of First Republic Bank's employees during the lender's recent collapse, Bloomberg Law and Reuters reported. The Justice Department is looking into whether anyone working at the firm used inside information in transactions as the bank was crumbling, the report added. Regulators seized First Republic and sold its assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in early May, in a deal to resolve the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis. The probe, which is at an early stage, is also scrutinizing the company's financial disclosures, Bloomberg Law reported. In late March, Massachusetts regulators also opened an investigation into sales of company stock by top executives at First Republic in the weeks leading up to the recent banking turmoil.
