(Reuters) - A Manhattan federal judge rejected JPMorgan Chase & Co's bid to dismiss a whistleblower lawsuit by a former private banker who said she was fired in retaliation for warning about a suspicious Israeli client.
Jennifer Sharkey said the August 2009 dismissal from her job as vice president and wealth manager followed her continuous warnings about the client's alleged involvement in mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.
She said the dismissal came eight months after the fraud of another JPMorgan (JPM.N) client, Bernard Madoff, was exposed,
According to Sharkey, the Israeli client had various undocumented businesses and unexplained funds transfers, and did business with Colombia despite New York-based JPMorgan's ban on transactions with that country. She also said the client generated about $600,000 of annual business for the bank.
In his decision, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet on Friday said Sharkey could continue to argue that JPMorgan violated the protections for whistleblowers under Sarbanes-Oxley, a 2002 governance law passed after Enron Corp's accounting fraud.
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