It took nearly two decades for Brent Ryan Bodner to build his career at JPMorgan. It took a deli platter to end it.
In 2024, Bodner was fired from the bank after charging a $642.50 food order to his employer. While the firm claimed the order was for a personal Super Bowl party, Bodner countered, arguing that it was for a preapproved business meeting held at his home, People reported.
“It was not a Super Bowl party,” said Marc Seldin Rosen, Bodner’s attorney, according to the New York Post. “They tried to mischaracterize it as a Super Bowl party on their nickel to disparage him.”
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) just sided with Bodner. Last week, FINRA determined that the firm must pay its former employee $4.25 million in damages, with a 10% annual interest rate from the date of service until the award is fully paid.
Additionally, JPMorgan was ordered to reimburse Bodner’s $800 filing fee. FINRA recommended expunging his termination record and revising the reason for his departure to “voluntary.”
A long career at JP Morgan
Bodner began his brokerage career at Merrill Lynch in 2000 before moving to Mutual of Omaha Investor Services. He later joined Chase Investment Services—a JPMorgan predecessor. Prior to his departure from JPMorgan, he was a managing director and private client adviser for the bank.
Bodner initially sought $15 million in compensatory damages and another $15 million in punitive damages. His case was heard before a three-member FINRA panel in Los Angeles across multiple sessions in March and April.
Bodner also alleged that JPMorgan had already decided to let him go before its internal investigation was complete. Rosen, Bodner’s lawyer, pointed to an internal message suggesting the firm feared Bodner would walk and take his clients with him, leading JPMorgan to assemble a team to divide up his book of business before he had even sat down for an interview.
After the ruling, Rosen told People he was not surprised by the outcome. He noted that while he had hoped the award would more closely reflect the full extent of his client’s damages, he maintained respect for the arbitration process and its decision.
JPMorgan pushed back on the outcome. “In every workplace in America, submitting an inaccurate expense report is grounds for termination,” a spokesperson told Inc. “When a company takes reasonable actions based on its investigation and submits a good faith U5 [a termination notice in the securities industry] in compliance with the law, it should not be second-guessed and punished with a multimillion-dollar award.”
The spokesperson also said that the company’s internal review found that Bodner had received prior approval to take a client and a potential business prospect—who was later identified as his cousin and the cousin’s boyfriend—to dinner at a local deli. Instead, according to the firm, he hosted a Super Bowl party at his home for family and friends, which included the two. He then submitted the deli receipt, covering food for more than a dozen people, as a business expense.
“Thus, he both misstated the purpose and location of the gathering, which violated the firm’s policies,” the spokesperson said. “The advisor, as an at-will employee, was therefore terminated for breaching the company’s trust and misusing their position.”
—Amaya Nichole
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister website, Inc.com.
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