thunder wrote:
On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:37:28 -0500, HK wrote:


As part of Wednesday’s settlement, the Justice Department received the
names and bank records of about 250 wealthy American clients of UBS.

Seems Swiss banking secrecy is already over, and I don't feel bad about
it at all.


Also, the chairman of Bank of America has been summoned for a parley:

(CNN) -- Bank of America CEO and Chairman Kenneth Lewis has been issued
a subpoena by the New York State Attorney General's Office, which is
investigating whether the bank violated state law by withholding
information from investors, a source familiar with the investigation
told CNN.

Kenneth Lewis is the CEO and chairman of Bank of America, the nation's
largest bank.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has been highly critical of Wall Street
firms in general and Merrill Lynch in particular for the way they have
conducted themselves in the midst of a financial crisis.

Last week, he accused Merrill Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of
America late last year, of secretly doling out big bonuses before
reporting a huge quarterly loss.

"Merrill Lynch's decision to secretly and prematurely award
approximately $3.6 billion in bonuses, and Bank of America's apparent
complicity in it, raise serious and disturbing questions," Cuomo wrote
in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, chairman of the House
Committee on Financial Services.

In his letter to Frank, Cuomo said Merrill gave bonuses of at least $1
million each to 696 employees, with a combined $121 million going to the
top four recipients. The next four recipients were awarded a total of
$62 million, and the next six received $66 million, he said. In all, the
bonuses for 2008 totaled $3.6 billion.

"While more than 39,000 Merrill employees received bonuses from the
pool, the vast majority of these funds were disproportionately
distributed to a small number of individuals," Cuomo wrote. "Indeed,
Merrill chose to make millionaires out of a select group of 700 employees."

The attorney general said Merrill "awarded an even smaller group of top
executives what can only be described as gigantic bonuses."

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Capitalism at its best.