The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday asked for a jury trial related to its lawsuit against Bank of America Corp. (BAC) for misleading shareholders about bonuses to Merrill Lynch employees before the companies merged in January.   U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff last month rejected a $33 million settlement between the SEC and Bank of America over the $3.6 billion in bonuses. The District Court Judge said that SEC's accusations of inadequate disclosure by the bank over bonuses paid at Merrill Lynch must go to trial. The date of trial is set for March 1, 2010.   Though BofA overpaid for Merrill Lynch, the deal makes strategic sense now. With the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, BofA gained a global investment-banking platform, profitable retail brokerage addition and significant equity-underwriting capacity, all of which it lacked earlier. For the first half of 2009, Merrill contributed $1.84 billion....

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will aggressively pursue a trial against Bank of America Corp. (BAC) for allegedly misleading investors during the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. late last year. The SEC accused BofA of failing to disclose to shareholders that it had authorized Merrill to pay up to $5.8 billion in bonuses to employees in 2008 even after it lost $27.6 billion that year.

Last month, the SEC and BofA had reached a settlement on the charges that required the bank to pay a $33 million fine. But US District Judge Jed Rakoff condemned the deal, saying the corporate fine would further unfairly penalize the shareholders instead of the people actually guilty of misleading investors.

Both the SEC and BofA have defended the earlier settlement proposal as appropriate. But after Rakoff's ruling, the SEC weighed its options - to go to trial, drop the

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U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan ordered federal regulators to explain why they didn't investigate whether executives at Bank of America Corp. (BAC) misled shareholders about bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch.   Rakoff delayed the approval of Bank of America's proposed $33 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the bonus affair, which arose after the bank’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch in September 2008 for $50 billion.   The SEC charged that a proxy statement by Bank of America in November misled investors as it stated that Merrill Lynch would not pay year-end bonuses without Bank of America's consent. However, Bank of America had already authorized Merrill Lynch to pay up to $5.8 billion in bonuses and didn't share that information with shareholders. That rendered a statement Bank of America mailed to 283,000 shareholders of both companies about the Merrill Lynch deal materially false ...

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit against Merrill Lynch & Co. for $150 million. The lawsuit accused Merrill Lynch for misleading investors with respect to the sale of bonds and preferred stock.

The preliminary approval of the settlement, granted by US District Judge Jed Rakoff on Aug. 21, was made public yesterday.

Two Louisiana pension funds were the major applicants for the lawsuit. About 20 former Merrill executives and directors were named as defendants. The company was accused of issuing false and misleading prospectuses and registration statements in the offerings between 2006 and 2008.

Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch on Jan. 1, creating the largest U.S. bank by assets.

We think that Bank of America is in relatively good shape from a capital perspective. During this delicate period of market stress, the availability of significant private-sector capital is very limited. As a

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