Tense moments at JPMorgan’s Senate hearing

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For nearly six hours Friday current and former executives at JPMorgan Chase & Co., as well as three different regulators, sat for testimony before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on investigations to answer questions about the famous "whale trade" that cost the bank $6.2-billion (U.S.).

Because you probably don't have six hours to watch it all, here are the key exchanges and facts disclosed.

Chief executive officer Jamie Dimon was aware that the bank was breaking through its risk barriers and that the investment unit had problems.

Ina Drew, the former head of the chief investment office, where the whale trade was housed, was asked by Senator Carl Levin whether Mr. Dimon "knew about all the CIO trading." Yes, she said, he did.

Executives on the now-famous April conference call with reporters knew the loss was ballooning out of control, even though they said it wasn't a problem.

When former chief executive officer Doug Braunstein was asked why the bank didn't disclose more on the call, he said what it provided was "an accurate presentation." When pressed by Mr. Levin that the executives knew the losses already amounted to $1-billion, he didn't deny it and beat around the bush.

Note that the call also came after an internal risk metric, known as the comprehensive risk measure, warned that losses could hit $6-billion. The CIO, according to the Senate's report, dismissed it as "garbage."

Michael Cavanagh, co-CEO of the investment bank, admitted that the bank adjusted the way it valued the trades to make them more kosher with the risk requirements.

At first he said it was simply a coincidence that the valuation was adjusted right when the trade was blowing up, but Mr. Levin stepped in and reminded him he was under oath. Mr. Cavanagh had a change of heart

Mr. Levin: Their marking was changed in order to reduce the loss on the books?

Mr. Cavanagh: Yes.

Mr. Levin: That's the reason it was done?

Mr. Cavanagh: Yes.

Senator John McCain wanted to know how people were held accountable for breaching the bank's internal acceptable risk levels.

Mr. Cavanagh said some were fired and others faced pay cuts. Mr. McCain wanted to know how deep these cuts were. "I moved from $9.5-million in 2011 to $5-million in 2012."

JPMorgan admitted that the regulators weren't receiving daily updates on their trading positions right when the trade blew up.

Mr. Braunstein said "they did not get the detailed positions regularly." However, regulators also said their own actions weren't perfect, acknowledging that for a while they overlooked that the bank breached risk levels countless times, including 160 times in April, 2012, alone.