B of A

New York has filed two new major securities fraud lawsuits – but they didn’t come from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office. Instead, the state Comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, as trustee of the $132.6 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, brought the suits against Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, claiming they violated federal securities laws.

There already are a number of good articles on the Web exploring Judge Rakoff’s “grudging” approval of the SEC/Bank of America $150 million settlement relating to B of A’s Merrill Lynch acquisition.

Federal Judge Jed Rakoff has approved the SEC/Bank of America settlement arising from B of A’s merger with Merrill Lynch.“This court, while shaking its head, grants the S.E.C.’s motion and approves the proposed consent judgment,” the court wrote.  

More to follow….

Federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff, who issued an important decision on Friday in the Dreier cases about which we just blogged, has a 2 p.m. hearing scheduled today to consider a motion by the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a $150 million settlement with the Bank of America. The judge previously rejected other efforts to settle SEC/B of A disputes, and it will be very interesting to see what he has to say about this proposal. 

Bank of America, its former CEO Kenneth D. Lewis, and its former CFO Joseph L. Price have been charged with duping shareholders and the federal government to complete a merger with Merrill Lynch. According to a lawsuit filed today by N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Bank of America’s management intentionally failed to disclose massive losses at Merrill so that shareholders would vote to approve the merger.

Good morning! There are some very interesting articles to read this morning before you get to work. Their titles give a good sense of their substance:

Here’s something that you do not see every day: One of the nation’s leading financial institutions, Bank of America, has been ordered to provide information to the House of Representatives in an apparent Congressional effort to determine whether Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America acquired last year, had granted favorable terms to lawmakers and other “VIPs.”

The battle over Bank of America’s assertion of the attorney-client privilege in connection with various government investigations into its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and the payment of bonuses has reached a new level: according to an article in the New York Times today, Congressman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) has stated that B of A is “hiding information” and that it cannot use the privilege with Congress.

Federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff has refused to approve the $33 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America over bonuses B of A paid to Merrill Lynch executives after it acquired the brokerage firm last year.