A 39-year-old man is believed to have jumped to his death from JP Morgan Chase’s European headquarters in London this morning.
The man is thought to have been an executive at America’s largest bank. Scotland Yard confirmed to the Daily Beast that they were not treating the fall as suspicious and said “there was no suggestion” that someone had trespassed onto the Canary Wharf premises.
Office workers in London’s Docklands financial district said they had seen the man’s body on a roof deck at the ninth floor level of the 33-story building. “Sad scene. Someone jumped/fell at JPMorgan Canary Wharf. A sorry view from my desk,” said Andrew Lawrence, who works in a nearby office, on Twitter.
Jamie Dimon’s Wall Street powerhouse reportedly introduced “protected weekends” last month that would allow staff one-weekend off per month after concerns that JP Morgan staff were working harder than those at other Wall Street firms, which had attempted to ease the hours. “When we looked at the rest of the Street, we really hadn’t properly kept pace,” a source told New York magazine.
The bank said they were unable to confirm that the dead man was a member of staff at the headquarters for the Middle East, Africa and Europe operation. “We are reviewing a very sad incident at 25, Bank Street this morning,” a spokesman said.
London’s Metropolitan Police said an investigation was underway but there had been no arrests and no signs of foul play. “We believe we know the identity of the deceased but await formal identification,” a spokesman said.
An intern working at the London offices of Bank of America collapsed and died last year after working 72-hours straight. The 21-year-old, who studied at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor, Michigan, had suffered an epileptic seizure. “It may be that because Moritz had been working so hard his fatigue was a trigger for the seizure that killed him,” the coroner said.
As workers poured into London’s financial district at around 8am this morning, an air ambulance was dispatched to the building that also used to house Lehmann Brother’s European offices. “Sadly, a man in his 30s was pronounced dead at the scene,” an ambulance spokesman said.
