Bank of America Corp. failed to meet a Monday midday deadline to hand over further details about its acquisition of Merrill Lynch to a congressional investigative committee, a panel spokeswoman said.

Bank of America "did not comply with the deadline," said the spokeswoman for U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns.

The committee is investigating details surrounding Bank of America’s purchase of Merrill Lynch, including the disclosure of pre-merger losses at the investment bank, what funding commitments the U.S. government made prior to the deal and what legal basis the bank may have had for backing out of the deal.

Towns has already accused Bank of America of meeting his requests for information with volumes of unhelpful documents, including an invitation to attend an East Asian investment conference, written in Chinese.

In a Sept. 18 letter to Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis, Towns said the bank has produced documents "clearly irrelevant" to an Aug. 6 request by the committee for all records from Sept. 1, 2008 through Jan. 16, 2009,

Bank of America said Monday it was working with Towns.

"We are working with the committee on a plan to provide them with the information they need," said Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri in an emailed statement.

He said Anne Finucane, the bank’s global chief strategy and marketing officer, will meet with Towns on Tuesday to discuss providing the necessary documents "without violating attorney client privilege."

The committee has said information relevant to the investigation be disclosed, and the bank must waive attorney-client privilege to do so.

Towns’ Sept. 18 letter said that instead of providing documents relevant to the investigation, Bank of America has produced "hundreds of pages of unrelated, extraneous information" including: emails from employees to Ken Lewis about his "’awesome’ performance on 60 Minutes," emails to employees about company discounts at retailers, the announcement of the "Annual Pecan Sale" featuring "This Year’s Crop of Mammoth Pecan Halves."

Towns also wrote that while Bank of America’s executives’ personal information, and information relevant to the investigation, was redacted from documents; the bank did not redact sensitive customer information included in the request, like credit card numbers and account numbers.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank’s stock was down 2.1 percent in afternoon trading to $17.26.

 

BofA Fails To Meet Congressional Deadline

by Banker & Tradesman time to read: 2 min
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