Bank of America

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….

The Times today also has a good summary of yesterday’s hearing in Judge Rakoff’s courtroom to consider the proposed SEC/Bank of America settlement. Will the judge say yea, or nay?

The first reports about the hearing being held right now by federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff on the proposed $150 million settlement between the SEC and Bank of America are available at http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-08/bank-of-america-judge-hears-arguments-over-150-million-accord.html and http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9779848

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.

There’s another online article to which we would like to point you this morning. It’s “A Preview of Trials and Tribulations in 2010,” by Peter J. Henning, a law professor who specializes in white collar crime issues and writes about them for the Times. In his piece, he discusses the Galleon insider trading case, involving billionaire hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam; the alleged Ponzi scheme case involving R.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sent a letter today to Bank of America counsel Lewis Liman of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton regarding his “ongoing investigation” of B of A’s merger with Merrill Lynch. Cuomo wrote that his office is “at the stage in our investigation in which we are making charging decisions with respect to Bank of America and its executives.”

People were sweating in sweltering New York City yesterday, and federal district court judge Jed Rakoff didn’t make it any cooler in his courtroom.