Highbridge Capital Management

Highbridge Capital Management is a New York hedge fund founded in September 1992 by Glenn Dubin and Henry Swieca. A March 2004 JPMorgan Chase memorandum described Jeffrey Epstein as "a founding investor in Highbridge," and Epstein advised Dubin and Swieca in their negotiations with JPMorgan over the bank's purchase of a majority stake that year, at a time when he was also a private-banking client of JPMorgan and a correspondent of its executive Jes Staley. JPMorgan raised its stake to 77.5 percent in 2009. Dubin led the firm until 2013. In 2010 Highbridge answered a subpoena in an arbitration between Epstein's companies and the Fortress Value Recovery Fund and D.B. Zwirn & Co. entities, and in 2020 the Virgin Islands subpoenaed its records in its suit against Epstein's estate.¹²³⁴⁵

Founding

Dubin and Swieca grew up in Washington Heights, "a working-class neighborhood in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge," and launched Highbridge as an actively managed hedge fund in September 1992. The fund had 128 million dollars in assets during the 1994 bond market rout and about 6 billion dollars by June 2004, when Institutional Investor listed JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup among the money-center banks that were its clients.¹

The 2004 JPMorgan Purchase

Staley told the United Kingdom's Upper Tribunal in 2025 that JPMorgan's 2004 purchase of a majority stake in Highbridge was the largest acquisition of a hedge fund to that time, and that Epstein played an important role in it while acting as an adviser to another party. A memorandum of March 18, 2004 to Jamie Dimon, then still chairman of Bank One Corporation, and to JPMorgan chairman William B. Harrison Jr. and David Coulter stated: "Highbridge has approached JB, JPMC based on an existing relationship with the founders/owners, and with Jeffrey Epstein [a founding investor in Highbridge]." A June 16, 2004 email to Staley read: "We continue to be concerned about the role Jeffrey Epstein is or is not playing. One concern that we have is that Jeffrey has been educating Glenn & Henry about our structure and valuation thoughts."²³⁶

Dimon testified in 2023 that he "had ultimate approval of the transaction," that he did not know of any role Epstein played, and that he did not recall the March memorandum. Asked why Staley would have written to him about Highbridge and Epstein, he said, "You got me." JPMorgan raised its stake to 77.5 percent in 2009. In September 2025 Senator Ron Wyden asked the bank to describe any payments to Epstein for services, "such as the reported $15 million paid by JPMC to Epstein related to the acquisition of Highbridge"; the bank did not answer.⁶⁷⁸

The Fortress and Zwirn Arbitration

On November 9, 2010 Highbridge Capital Management, LLC was served, as a non-party, with a subpoena duces tecum in an arbitration before JAMS in New York, Reference No. 1425006537, captioned Fortress VRF I LLC and Fortress Value Recovery Fund I LLC v. Jeepers, Inc. In the same proceeding Financial Trust Company, Inc. and Jeepers, Inc. were counter-claimants and third-party claimants against Fortress Value Recovery Fund I LLC and against D.B. Zwirn Partners, LLC, D.B. Zwirn & Co., L.P., DBZ GP, LLC, Zwirn Holdings, LLC and Daniel Zwirn. Highbridge's responses and objections to the subpoena were later produced by JPMorgan in the Virgin Islands litigation under the Bates number JPM-SDNY-00061119.⁴

Project Jeep and the Virgin Islands Subpoena

On July 22, 2019, after Epstein's arrest, JPMorgan's global head of financial crimes compliance wrote to two chief compliance officers that "Top of house requested that we expand our analysis to related parties and put together slides," and that "There is a highbridge angle and one dating back to Bear," referring to Bear Stearns. The summary produced by the review, code-named Project Jeep, grouped messages concerning "lawsuits and litigation involving Epstein, JPMC, Bear Stearns, Highbridge, Zwirn etc."⁹

On September 3, 2020 the Virgin Islands attorney general, Denise George, in her suit against Epstein's estate, issued subpoenas to Dubin, his wife Eva Andersson-Dubin and Highbridge, seeking records of financial transactions and communications with Epstein from 1998 onward, including three wire transfers between 2014 and 2016.⁵