Former Chief Growth Officer of Frank Indicted for Fraud

Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a second former executive of college financial-planning startup Frank.

They have indicted Olivier Amar, former chief growth officer of Frank, in connection with fraud related to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s $175 million acquisition of the company, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 12). The charges include conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud and securities fraud.

Amar was added to a case that already includes the founder of Frank, Charlie Javice, according to the report.

Both Amar and Javice were previously sued for fraud by JPMorgan, but Amar was previously omitted from the criminal case, the report said.

On Wednesday, however, Amar was added to the criminal case and was added to a fraud suit that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had earlier filed against Javice, per the report.

Amar has sought to dismiss the JPMorgan suit, saying he was not a party to the merger agreement and attended only one meeting with the bank, the report said.

Amar is scheduled for arraignment and faces a sentence of up to 30 years if convicted, according to the report.

JPMorgan Chase acquired Frank in September 2021, planning to have the company keep its branding and continue to be led by Javice, who was named head of student solutions on the bank’s digital products team.

About four months later, in January 2022, JPMorgan Chase said it had been defrauded in the acquisition and brought a lawsuit against Javice, saying she and Amar had inflated the number of customers who were using the platform. The bank alleged that Javice and Amar had someone create millions of fake accounts in order to mislead the bank as it was considering making the deal.

Lawyers for Javice said at the time that the bank didn’t perform due diligence, rushed into the deal and launched its internal investigation of the deal in order to fire her and deny her a retention bonus.

The SEC charged Javice in April, alleging she had carried out a scheme to dupe JPMorgan into thinking Frank had access to data on 4.25 million students who used its service, though the true number was below 300,000.

The Department of Justice also charged Javice with bank fraud, wire fraud and securities fraud.