JPMorgan Challenges Class-Action Status For Jeffrey Epstein's Accusers

JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM has appealed to a federal judge to reject a class-action status request by one of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers, who accused the bank of enabling the late financier's sexual abuse.

In a court filing on Friday, the bank said Epstein's accusers had too many differences to sue under an "oversimplified" theory that it was liable to all of them by providing Epstein with banking services, Reuters reported. 

The bank said that allowing a class action "skips over" how Epstein's conduct "varied from victim to victim, and across time" and that the bank's knowledge at the time and provision of banking services similarly varied.

"The question before the court is whether to certify a class in this lawsuit. It should not," JPMorgan argued.

According to Reuters, the bank's attorneys wrote that, while Epstein's abuse was monstrous, the immense complexity of dozens of victims' experiences over two decades across countries and continents makes it impossible to bundle their cases together in a class action.

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"When and how was each victim abused?" JPMorgan's lawyers asked. "What did JPMC know at the time of the abuse? What nexus was there between JPMC's banking services and the abuse? "

A class action lets plaintiffs sue as a group, potentially allowing greater recoveries at lower costs than if they were forced to sue individually.

Epstein's accusers filed a legal action against the bank alleging that Epstein's sex trafficking enterprise could not have "existed or flourished" without the banks' collaboration.

The U.S. Virgin Islands has also sued the bank for facilitating Epstein's sex-trafficking scheme and helping him to cover it up. 

Epstein was indicted and imprisoned in July 2019 on federal charges of operating a sex trafficking ring. However, before his trial was set to begin, he was found dead in a Manhattan jail in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide by a New York City medical examiner. 

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