Legal News

Judge Postpones Ruling Over Merrill Lynch Executive Bonuses

By Jennifer Forsyth

Anyone who saw Jon Stewart grilling CNBC’s Jim Cramer on The Daily Show Thursday night (here’s the link) now realizes how much outrage is aimed at Wall Street. But Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney general, didn’t need a confrontation on a fake newscast to show him the political potential there. It seems that with every headline he gets in probing Merrill Lynch’s $3.6 billion in bonus payouts just before its merger with Bank of America, his poll numbers –and his potential for higher office–rise. Mr. Cuomo already must be dreaming of new curtains for the governor’s mansion.

More headlines will undoubtedly come next week. New York Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried, in a hearing today, postponed his ruling on whether Bank of America has to release the names of Merrill’s top earners in 2008 to Cuomo’s office. He said he will rule by next Friday, March 20. Here’s the Bloomberg story on the hearing; click here for the audio feed of the hearing, courtesy of the NYT.

The hearing was in connection with the attorney general’s investigation into whether Bank of America violated state securities laws by failing to disclose to investors information about bonuses at Merrill as the two were merging. Bank of America says it’s willing to turn over bonus data but wants to redact names, saying it would hurt the bank in a competitive marketplace to disclose what individuals earned.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).