Full Suit By Andrew Cuomo Against Ken Lewis And Joe Price
by ilene - February 4th, 2010 1:29 pm
Full Suit By Andrew Cuomo Against Ken Lewis And Joe Price
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Courtesy of Zero Hedge
Highlights from the suit:
By early December 2008, Bank of America’s top management, including its CEO Ken Lewis and CFO Joseph Price, had two choices: they could tell the Bank’s shareholders about the huge material losses at Merrill since the merger proxy was filed, or they could hide them. Bank management chose to hide the information. In particular, Bank management failed to disclose that by December 5, 2008, the day Bank of America shareholders voted to approve the merger with Merrill Lynch, Merrill had incurred actual pretax losses of more than $16 billion. Bank management also knew at this time that additional losses were forthcoming and that Merrill had become a shadow of the company Bank of America had described in its Proxy Statement and other public statements advocating the merger. The Bank’s management thus left the Bank’s shareholders in the dark about fundamental changes at Merrill that were obviously important to their voting decision. These disclosure failures violated New York’s Martin Act.
Having obtained shareholder approval for the deal, Lewis then misled federal regulators by telling them that because 50% of Merrill’s tangible equity had disappeared, the Bank could not complete the merger without an extraordinary taxpayer bailout. Lewis went onto say how the Bank needed to “fill the hole” left by the unprecedented losses, which contradicted his public statements to the effect that the Bank would not need additional capital. Remarkably, between the time that the shareholders had approved the deal and the time that Lewis sought a taxpayer bailout, Merrill’s actual losses had only increased another $1.4 billion. The Bank’s management has not and cannot explain why they did not disclose to the Bank’s shareholders losses so great that, absent a historic taxpayer bailout, they threatened the Bank’s very existence.
On November 13, when Price knew of at least approximately $5 billion in after tax losses, Bank of America’s General Counsel, Timothy Mayopoulos, and lawyers from its outside law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, determined the Bank should disclose the losses. The lawyers discussed the date of the disclosure, the manner of the disclosure, who would draft the disclosure, and that Price would approach Merrill CEO John Thain about the disclosure. Shortly thereafter, however, the decision was reversed, Wachtell’s role was marginalized, and the Bank made its
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Senator Bob Corker Needs to Be Updated on His Bank Failure History
by ilene - February 2nd, 2010 7:08 pm
Senator Bob Corker Needs to Be Updated on His Bank Failure History
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton
Senator Corker challenged Mr. Volcker’s stance in today’s congressional hearings on the Volcker Rule by saying that no financial holding company that had a commercial bank failed while performing proprietary trading. It appears as if Mr. Corker may have received his information from the banking lobby, and did not do his own homework.
Let’s reference the largest commercial bank/thrift failure of all:
From …
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Property Rights Take a Hit
by ilene - June 14th, 2009 11:43 pm
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In this article, Peter Schiff discusses the practical problems with a government’s abrogation of contract and property rights for some "contrived greater good." That is deeply disturbing enough but it goes further. Our Constitution gave specific powers to different branches of government to hold the powers of government in check. The loss of these checks and balances goes beyond the financial world "twilight zone" horrors unfolding before us now, it undermines the entire structure of our governance. – Ilene
Property Rights Take a Hit
By Peter Schiff, writing at LewRockwell.com
“Crony capitalism” is a term often applied to foreign nations where government interference circumvents market forces. The practice is widely associated with tin-pot dictators and second-rate economies. In such a system, support for the ruling regime is the best and only path to economic success. Who you know supersedes what you know, and favoritism trumps the rule of law. Unfortunately, this week’s events demonstrate that the phrase now more aptly describes our own country.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Chrysler’s secured creditors based on the government’s argument that the needs of other stakeholders outweighed those of a few creditors. In this case, the Administration concluded the interests of the United Auto Workers outweighed the interests of the Indiana teachers and firemen whose pension fund sued to block the restructuring. Given the enormous financial support that the UAW poured into the Obama campaign, such partiality is hardly surprising.
When making their investment in Chrysler just a few months ago, the Indiana pension fund agreed to commit capital because of the specific assurances received from the company. In allowing this sham bankruptcy to be crammed through the courts, we have shredded the vital principal of the rule of law, and have become a nation of men, rather than one of laws.
The risk that legal contracts can now be arbitrarily set aside will make investors think twice before committing capital to distressed corporations. Oftentimes enforcing contracts imposes hardships. That’s precisely why we have contracts.
Without absolute faith that deals will be honored, it will be extremely difficult for U.S. companies to borrow money. This will be particularly true for those companies already struggling with too much debt. Without the ability to issue secured debt,…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site
