New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed civil securities fraud charges against former Bank of America chief executive Kenneth Lewis and former chief financial officer Joseph Price, alleging they decided not to disclose mounting losses at Merrill Lynch before getting shareholder approval to acquire the Wall Street firm.

Shareholders approved the purchase on December 5, 2008, not knowing that Merrill had accumulated more than $16bn (€11.7bn) in "actual losses" for the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the attorney general. The bank did not say anything about the mounting losses until the US in January 2009 provided the bank with an additional $20bn to absorb Merrill.