[minorninth]

I believe that can still happen. This was just a fine from the SEC, the legal consequences could come later.

Basically a lot of that email was subject to litigation holds. If that litigation ends up depending on some email that Chase was supposed to retain but failed to, the judge is allowed to give a "spoliation inference" instruction to the jury - the jury can infer that the evidence would have been unfavorable to Chase.

The fact that this may have been due to incompetence rather than malice means this is less likely.