JPMorgan sues the founder of the college financial-planning website it acquired, alleging she falsely inflated its user numbers
The bank accused Frank's founder Charlie Javice of inflating user counts, while she alleged the bank "mismanaged" her company and pushed her out.
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- JPMorgan alleged that college financial-planning website Frank lied about its growth and users.
- The bank shut down the Frank college aid website on Thursday morning.
- Frank's founder Charlie Javice denied the allegations and said the firm "mismanaged" her site.
JPMorgan accused the founder of a college aid site it had purchased of "lying" and fabricating almost 4 million customer accounts.
In a lawsuit filed last month, the bank said it bought the startup Frank, a website meant to help students seek out options for financial aid, for $175 million in 2021. JPMorgan's suit accused Frank's founder Charlie Javice and its former chief growth officer Olivier Amar of being in on a scheme to juice its user numbers.
The bank alleged that Javice and Amar enlisted an unnamed data science professor to inflate those numbers after one of Frank's own engineers, who put its user count closer to about 300,000, refused to do so.
Amar, the bank alleged, helped Javice by buying a list of students from a marketing firm for $105,000. The pair used that list to make the inflated user numbers seem credible.
The bank claimed that the startup provided the false user numbers while it was conducting due diligence when looking into acquiring the company.
As of Thursday morning, JPMorgan had closed down Frank's website, a representative for the bank confirmed to Insider.
Javice, who was featured on Forbes' 30 under 30 list in 2019, herself sued JPMorgan in December, alleging that the bank conducted "groundless" inquiries and pushed her out in November.
Her lawsuit stated that it was JPMorgan that "mismanaged" Frank's business after acquiring it, rejecting her input and then pummeling her with "overzealous internal investigations." She said that the bank ultimately timed her firing to take place before it would have to pay her $28 million as part of its deal to buy her company and keep her on.
Javice's attorney, Alex Spiro, also told Insider that she denies the bank's allegations and that she was merely a whistleblower against whom the bank was lashing out.
"After JPM rushed to acquire Charlie's rocketship business, JPM realized they couldn't work around existing student privacy laws, committed misconduct and then tried to retrade the deal," Spiro said in a statement Thursday. "Charlie blew the whistle and then sued JPM."
Javice's attorney Spiro, a top litigator at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, is known for representing high-profile clients including Elon Musk.
A representative for JPMorgan disputed his characterization.
"Our legal claims against Ms. Javice and Mr. Amar are set out in our complaint, along with the key facts," JPMorgan representative Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement to Insider. "Ms. Javice was not and is not a whistleblower."
Amar didn't respond to an email and Twitter DM from Insider.