SEC to see if Bank of America broke law

LONDON: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reviewing if Bank of America Corp violated federal securities law by failing to disclose to shareholders Merrill Lynch’s plan to pay US$3.62bil in bonuses before they voted for the merger of the banks, the Financial Times said.

Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, wrote in a letter to a Democratic congressman that the regulator was “carefully reviewing the Bank of America disclosure” and had not yet expressed a view on whether the bonus plan should have been revealed, the paper said.