Bank One may have cost investors in its family of funds millions by scheming with some investors to engage in after hours, market timing.

Investigation and pending class action against Bank One Corp, now consolidated into JP Morgan. Bank One Corp owns and operates the Bank One family of funds. This class action lawsuit alleges that Bank One engaged in a pattern and system of "market timing" and/or "late trading" in connection with Bank One Corp's operation of the Bank One funds.

In the United States, mutual fund prices are set once daily at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Late trading occurs when traders are allowed to purchase fund shares after 4:00 p.m. at that day's closing price. Under law, most mutual fund trades received after 4:00 p.m. must be executed at the following day's closing price, but because some orders placed before 4:00 p.m. cannot be executed until after 4:00 p.m., brokers can collude with investors and submit post-4:00 p.m. trades as if they had been placed before 4:00 p.m. Such trades can be made with information about after-hours market developments.

Market timing is an investment strategy in which an investor tries to profit from short-term market cycles by trading into and out of market sectors as they heat up and cool off. In many cases, funds bar or limit market timing because the practice may increase the cost of administering a mutual fund borne by all shareholders in the fund. Market Timing and Late Trading cost the investors in the Bank One funds hundreds of millions of dollars.