After facing a lawsuit from the French manufacturer of Ray-Ban glasses, in April 2022, JPMorgan now faces a lawsuit for violating the New York law governing commercial contracts that have demanded refunds for each unauthorized payment.
The French maker of Ray-Ban lost $272 million from its New York account, for which the company held the bank accountable. About $100 million could not be recovered, which was swindled in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The rest of the sum was recovered by the French company Essilor by using a costly and burdensome process.
The United States of America district Judge Lewis Liman ruled that the Thailand unit of EssilorLuxottica SA can move to court to prove that JPMorgan did not follow the required actions, which led to financial fraud.
Essilor designs and markets lenses and is considered the world’s largest ophthalmic lens manufacturer. It merged with the Italian eyewear company Luxottica in 2017. Essilor Manufacturing (Thailand) Co. is a unit of Ray-Ban and operates a plant in Thailand for EssilorLuxottica SA. Essilor also sells Ray-Ban eyewear along with others.
According to Essilor International’s case report that was filed on 25 April 2022, the cause of action was 28 U.S.C. § 1332 Diversity Action, which involves citizens of different states.
Denied claims against JPMorgan Chase and Co
The court rejected some claims, such as the breach of contract as filed by the plaintiff. However, the court said that Essilor can revive it if they want to, considering the obligations that ended after a point, on the part of the bank. Moreover, the court also denied a negligence claim on JPMorgan, stating that the financial institution had no duty outside its account agreement to keep a check on overdrafts or to stop it from being conducted.
In his 39-page report, Judge Liman noted that Essilor had not authorized the money transfers despite the bank claiming so based on receiving two approvals for each transfer. Essilor claimed that JPMorgan ignored some signs of fraud, including the transfer of money in whole dollar amounts, which were from small banks.
Moreover, the money went through unfamiliar entities as accused by the plaintiff. Its claim said the transfer of money went through hair care, furniture, and coffee instead of the optical industry that Ray-Ban is into.
Luxottica data breach
Luxottica has been embroiled in data breach incidents for the past few years. The Cyber Express reported on November 10, 2022, the luxury eyewear company suffered a data breach that was claimed by the cybercriminal group Sin. Earlier in 2020, Luxottica group suffered a security breach after it was attacked by Nefilim ransomware gang.