BondIT, a leading fixed income fintech innovator, announced it has filed suit against JPMorgan Chase Bank and its affiliates ("JPMorgan"), alleging that the world's largest bank unlawfully abandoned a long-promised strategic partnership and exclusive investment deal, breached binding contracts, and misappropriated BondIT's proprietary AI and other technology. According to the complaint, JPMorgan did so after its top executives made repeated promises and misrepresentations to induce BondIT to engage with the bank over the course of nearly two years.

BondIT's complaint, filed in the New York Supreme Court's Commercial Division, details how JPMorgan selected BondIT following a competitive process, executed binding preliminary agreements, and repeatedly assured BondIT that a long-term partnership and equity investment were imminent – describing the partnership as "a long and strategic relationship."  Based on JPMorgan's assurances, BondIT's engineers spent thousands of hours integrating and configuring its cutting-edge fixed income technology for JPMorgan's systems, consistently earning stellar feedback from bank executives. But after many months of intense collaboration and despite unwavering praise for BondIT's technology and performance, the bank abruptly terminated negotiations based on pretext in breach of binding agreements – on the eve of closing a multilayered deal and launching a commercial rollout for the partnership.

BondIT argues that JPMorgan's brazen misconduct epitomizes the unchecked leverage that mega-corporations can exert over smaller, innovative firms and drain their intellectual capital with no accountability.

"No company should be able to induce another into expending its resources and sharing its IP for years under binding agreements and promises, only to flout legal obligations and walk away with the other enterprise's technology without consequence," said BondIT CEO Etai Ravid. "If left unchecked, undisclosed, and unpunished, this free riding behavior will only stifle innovation across the fintechecosystem and chill ingenuity, which will have universal repercussions."

Despite repeated assurances that JPMorgan would "not turn around" on the pending deal and continual praise of BondIT as a great partner with superior technology, the bank abruptly scuttled the agreement and all negotiations at the eleventh hour – abandoning a commercial partnership that JPMorgan's top executives projected to generate approximately $100 million in annual revenues for the bank.

Further compounding the harm to BondIT, the complaint alleges that JPMorgan misappropriated BondIT's trade secrets and proprietary AI and other technology to enhance the bank's own internal product offerings, unlawfully exploiting the access and trust BondIT provided in good faith. According to the complaint, after a forced leadership shakeup among JPMorgan's most senior ranks, newly installed executives determined to kill the near-final partnership, flouting the bank's contractual obligations and disregarding the extensive process that cost BondIT millions.