JPMorgan does not think that Chirayu Rana has a case. And yet the Wall Street Journal reports that in March 2026 the bank offered him $1m to settle his allegations against both it and a female employee.
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JPMorgan did not confirm the settlement sum in the Wall Street Journal’s story. However, a spokesman for the bank acknowledged that the bank had been in negotiations with Rana.
Rana’s lawyer did not respond to a request to comment. The WSJ says Rana neither accepted nor rejected JPMorgan’s $1m offer. However, $1m was not enough. In April 2026 Rana’s lawyers reportedly responded with their own offer to settle for $11.75m instead.
It seems JPMorgan did not accept this. Last week, therefore, Rana filed a lawsuit in the New York state court under the name of John Doe. Rana’s lawsuit made lurid allegations against Lorna Hadjini, an executive director in the JPMorgan leveraged finance team where Rana was a senior vice president. Among other things, Rana claimed that Hadjini forced him to have sex with her and threatened to withhold promotions unless he complied. JPMorgan was accused of enabling this abuse and of retaliating against Rana when he complained.
Hadjini’s attorney has strenuously denied the allegations and says that she, “never engaged in any inappropriate conduct with this individual of any kind.” JPMorgan has said it thoroughly investigated Rana’s accusations and found no merit in them. “While numerous employees cooperated with the investigation, the complainant refused to participate and has declined to provide facts that would be central to support his allegations,” the bank added.
The WSJ reports that JPMorgan’s March settlement offer of $1m was the result of “weeks of mediation.” It was equivalent to less than two years’ salary for Rana. However, Rana only actively worked at the bank for a year, having joined in May 2024, before being put on paid leave in May 2025 after filing a complaint to JPMorgan’s HR team. That complaint reportedly stated that he had been the victim of discrimination, race-based harassment and sexual assault during his time with the bank. He eventually left JPMorgan entirely and joined private equity firm Bregal Sagemount last October, but Bregal Sagemount says he left again in early April 2026.
Now that he’s left Bregal Sagemount, Rana might be more inclined to accept JPMorgan’s offer of $1m. Or maybe the $12m seems worth pursuing. Either way, JPMorgan’s willingness to settle for a not inconsequential sum to protect Hadjini could encourage other bankers to parry their own claims against it in the future.
“We did try to reach an agreement to avoid the time and expense of litigation and to support an employee who was being threatened with the very reputational harm now unfolding,” said the bank’s spokesman. “We continue to believe these allegations have no merit and new information raised as a result of the public filing only reinforces that conclusion.”
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