JPMorgan challenges Charlie Javice's $78 million legal defense fees, citing $161 seafood tower and $530 in gummy bears

• JPMorgan sued Charlie Javice over its botched acquisition of her startup — but it had to pay her legal fees.
• The bank claims Javice's lawyers milked that for all its worth, submitting 15 pounds of receipts.
• Her $78 million legal defense was overstaffed and included tons of unusual expenses, the bank said.

$161 for a seafood tower? Seems fishy.

That's what JPMorgan Chase's lawyers told a Delaware judge on Friday in an effort to get out of paying the rest of Charlie Javice's legal bill.

The bank sued Javice in late 2022, claiming that she and her cofounder, Olivier Amar, had faked data to inflate the value of their startup, Frank, which JPMorgan Chase paid $175 million to acquire. But Javice won an order requiring the bank to advance her legal fees, which is common in merger agreements.

Three years later, JPMorgan claims that Javice and her lawyers have milked that order far past the point of what's reasonable. The 15 pounds of receipts submitted for reimbursement include high-end hotels, first-class flights, $530 in gummy bears, "copious amounts of alcohol," and "a $581 dinner for two that included a $161 seafood tower."

The bank's lawyers said Javice's lawyers continued to expense personal items into 2025, "including a pet hair roller, laptop privacy screens, stain remover, allergy and cold medication, nutritional supplements, tea strainer, face masks, a coffee maker, lamps, a kettle, Uber rides for ordinary daily commute to a timekeeper's home office, 'groceries for meal prep,' bottles of wine, batteries, room upgrade charges at $300 per night, and meals at New York's best restaurants."

It blasted law firm Quinn Emanuel for a $60 Uber Eats order that included "four cookies and a cookie box."

Quinn Emanuel, which is representing Javice in the Delaware court case, said in a statement to Business Insider that JPMorgan "is trying to walk away from its contractual obligation to pay Ms. Javice's legal bills." The bank is "highlighting a handful of attorney expenses (not incurred by Ms. Javice) over two years, the vast majority of which it already reviewed and paid or are not disputed," Quinn Emmanuel spokesman Eric Herman said.

The bank also challenged the fees that Javice's lawyers charged for their time, as high as $2,700 per hour, including billing for trial attendance on a Saturday and other "non-trial days."

JPMorgan's lawyers said there were a total of 147 people — like lawyers and paralegals — who billed time to her defense, with the total bills across her criminal and civil cases crossing the $78 million mark. The bank said it has paid $60 million so far and says it shouldn't have to pay any more.

Most of Javice's bills, $47 million, have been rung up by Quinn Emanuel, whose team was led by celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro and partner Samuel Nitze, who co-chairs Quinn's crisis law and strategy group. Another $14 million was billed by attorney Jose Baez, a trial lawyer who defended Casey Anthony; $5 million by his frequent co-counsel, the Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan; and $11 million by Mintz, another big law firm.

Nearly all of the bills, $73 million, were incurred in Charlie Javice's criminal case. Javice was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years behind bars. The rest was incurred in civil cases. JPMC said Amar, the co-founder of Frank, who was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison, charged tens of millions of additional fees for his defense.