September
2010
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Zachary A. Goldfarb and Tomoeh Murakami Tse, Washington Post

Bank of America slapped with civil fraud charges by SEC and state regulators

Federal and state regulators filed civil fraud charges Thursday against Bank of America and its former chief executive and former chief financial officer in the broadest action brought to date against a major player in the financial crisis.

Regulators accused Bank of America and its former top executives -- chief executive officer Ken Lewis and chief financial officer Joseph Price -- of lying to investors in fall 2008 about mounting losses at Merrill Lynch, the troubled investment bank it was acquiring, and billions of dollars in bonuses paid to employees. Regulators also charged that the bank misled federal officials by falsely claiming it would back out of a deal to buy Merrill Lynch without billions of dollars more in bailout funds.

"Bank of America, through its top management, engaged in a concerted effort to deceive shareholders and American taxpayers at large," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. "They committed an enormous fraud, and American taxpayers ended up paying billions for Bank of America's misdeeds."

Additional civil charges are expected.

Posted by Editor on 02/04/10 at 04:06 PM •  (0) Comments

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"The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people."
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Vile Comments

$60 - $90 billion per year worth of “simple mistakes”?

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