JPMorgan Chase Won’t Face Revived Suit Over Silver Manipulation

By Bob Van Voris 

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) won a judge’s ruling rejecting a bid to revive claims that it manipulated silver futures and options prices in violation of U.S. antitrust law.

U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson in Manhattan said yesterday that a group of investors suing the bank can’t file a new complaint in the case, ruling that they failed to address legal shortcomings that convinced him to dismiss the case in December.

“None of the allegations added by plaintiffs in the proposed amended complaint cure the pleading deficiencies that led to the dismissal of plaintiffs’ first complaint for failure to state a claim,” Patterson wrote in a 12-page ruling today.

The investors claimed that JPMorgan conspired to suppress silver futures so that call options, or the right to buy, would decline, and put options for the right to sell would increase. They sought to represent a class of thousands of people and companies that held or traded silver futures and options on June 26, 2007, or from March 17, 2008, to Oct. 27, 2010.

Jennifer Zuccarelli, a JPMorgan spokeswoman, declined to comment on yesterday’s ruling. Christopher Lovell, a lawyer for the investors, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message seeking comment after regular business hours.

The case is In re Commodity Exchange Inc. Silver Futures and Options Trading Litigation, 11-cv-2213, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in New York at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net.

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