Excerpts from an article in today's National Post:

“We have five or six regulators or people coming after us on every different issue,” Mr. Dimon said Wednesday on a call with reporters after New York-based JPMorgan reported fourth-quarter results. “It’s a hard thing to deal with.”

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, posted a drop in fourth-quarter profit amid US$990 million of legal expenses, about double what some analysts predicted. The legal costs, mostly tied to probes into currency rate-rigging, follow even bigger payments in 2013 related to mortgage bonds sold before the 2008 crisis by JPMorgan and two firms it acquired.

Mr. Dimon, who was lauded during the crisis for JPMorgan’s role in buying Bear Stearns Cos. and Washington Mutual Inc.’s bank units, has criticized the government for penalizing JPMorgan for those firms’ actions.

The bank settled foreign exchange investigations with three regulators in November, paying about US$1 billion, and still faces a Justice Department probe.

“In the old days, you dealt with one regulator when you had an issue, maybe two,” said Mr. Dimon.

“Now it’s five or six. It makes it very difficult and very complicated. You all should ask the question about how American that is. And how fair that is. And how complex that is for companies.”