New York AG Seeks Details Of Merrill Bonuses
The bonuses were paid out while Merrill was accepting government bailout money and during a quarter in which the company lost $15 billion. Officials say the bonuses were also sped up to be paid before the completion of Merrill's merger with Bank of America on Jan. 1.
Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis was deposed by Cuomo's office for more than four hours Thursday (he was subpoenaed last week) and made a brief statement following the meeting: "It's been a long evening and I'm tired. I answered the questions that were asked to the best of my knowledge and hopefully brought some clarity to the issues they had and that's about all I can say."
Lewis (below) did not take questions.
"The AG is disappointed- severely disappointed at Bank of America's decision not to turn over some information. We have been asking for weeks now for a list of - a specific list - of who got what bonus from Merrill Lynch. And Bank of America has repeatedly refused to give us that information," Lawsky said.
"It's obviously information we'd like to ask Mr. Lewis about at length and go through with him and have him testify about individual - particular individual's compensation and bonuses," added Lawsky. "However, they, B of A, has made the decision, they don't want to turn that information over to us. We, therefore, at the deposition tonight, served Bank of America with a subpoena for that information. We intend to get it and will do so by any means necessary we deem going forward."
Asked about former Merrill CEO John Thain, who was forced last month to step down from his new position at Bank of America, Lawsky said only, "I'm not going to get into John Thain tonight."