JPMorgan Chase Releases Report on its U.S. Employee Arbitration Program

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--JPMorgan Chase released today a comprehensive report examining the firm’s use of arbitration for legal disputes of certain U.S. employee-related claims and the impact of binding arbitration on its workplace culture.

The report follows a successful engagement with and withdrawal of a shareholder proposal by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which asked the firm’s Board of Directors to oversee a review of the mandatory employee arbitration program. JPMorgan Chase worked with employment law attorneys from the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and University of Nebraska Law Professor Kristen Blankley to examine the potential benefits and drawbacks of employee arbitration; fairness and bias in arbitration; discovery in arbitration as compared to litigation; and arbitration and litigation data over the past six years, including time to resolution and outcomes.

The review found no basis to believe that the arbitration program impacts JPMorgan Chase’s ability to learn about gaps in the workplace culture or inhibits creating a positive workplace environment. It found that JPMorgan Chase’s policies and procedures for addressing employee concerns and potential wrongful conduct comport with best practices and concluded that arbitration remains a superior method to resolve many disputes between employees and the firm that are not resolved through other means.

As noted in the report, JPMorgan Chase has identified potential enhancements to the program and will undertake certain changes, including permitting plaintiff employees to disclose arbitration awards at their discretion.

The full report can be found here on jpmorganchase.com.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading financial services firm based in the United States of America (“U.S.”), with operations worldwide. JPMorgan Chase had $3.8 trillion in assets and $286 billion in stockholders’ equity as of June 30, 2022. The Firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers and small businesses, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management. Under the J.P. Morgan and Chase brands, the Firm serves millions of customers in the U.S., and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients globally. Information about JPMorgan Chase & Co. is available at www.jpmorganchase.com.