July 2 (Reuters) – A Delaware judge on Thursday said JPMorgan Chase must continue paying the legal bills of Charlie Javice, the former finance executive convicted of defrauding the bank, after JPMorgan racked up what it called an “astronomical” amount of expenses.
Magistrate Judge Christian Wright of the Delaware Chancery Court said JPMorgan didn’t meet its “challenging burden” to show that Javice’s fees and expenses were “so unmistakably unreasonable or clearly abusive” that they had to result from bad faith.
JPMorgan had no immediate comment.
Javice, 33, was convicted in March 2025 and later sentenced to 85 months in prison for defrauding JPMorgan into buying her education startup Frank for $175 million in 2021. She is appealing her conviction and sentence.
The largest U.S. bank had since June 2023 been picking up legal bills of Javice and former Frank chief growth officer Olivier Amar because of a judge’s order.
It also tried to stop paying legal expenses of Amar, who was convicted and sentenced to 68 months in prison.
Wright also rejected that request. The judge said his ruling covers $10.1 million of costs for Javice between January and September 2025, and $11.3 million for Amar over a similar period.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by William Maclean and Chizu Nomiyama )
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