But if you look closely at what JPMorgan actually admitted, you’ll see that the SEC settlement won’t be of much use to shareholders in the class action. Don’t misunderstand me: JPMorgan is extremely unlikely to escape from the private shareholder case without paying a lot of money. That’s not because of the SEC settlement, however. As I’ll explain, the bank’s lawyers did a very good job of tailoring JPMorgan’s admissions to the SEC to minimize their impact in the class action. In fact, I suspect that future SEC defendants are going to look at the JPMorgan settlement as a model for how to quench regulators’ thirst for blood without spilling a drop in parallel shareholder litigation.
via Don’t get too excited about JPMorgan’s admissions to the SEC — On the Case
Remember, this is a settlement in that both sides agreed to give up certain things in orderto get certain things. And since its “one of the big fish” the firm’s lawyers are going to craft everything so that while it looks like JP Morgan really admitted wrongdoing, etc in reality, they saved millions of dollars and got a break and know how not to do that business again.