Governor Cuomo Investigation and Letter on Bank of America's Purchase of Merrill Lynch
Apr 29, 2009
Governor Cuomo of New York has just finished investigating the circumstances under which Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch, effective January 1, 2009.
He found that Merrill Lynch's financial position was seriously worse than they had represented, but yet they got huge bonus payouts for its executives, making their position even worse. Bank of America's CEO wanted to back out of the deal, as the contract allowed, but Hank Paulson threatened to replace him and the entire board if he did so.
And, of course, they were not allowed to tell the shareholders what was going on, at least until after it was too late to do anything. It appears that the Treasury Secretary now has the authority to hire and fire bank executives. No one likes bank executives, of course, but I wonder if government officials are any more honest and trustworthy.
Gov. Cuomo wrote this letter lats Thursday to the appropriate members of congress, asking them to investigate.