Florida Securities Litigation & Arbitration by Jay Eng

On January 11, 2010, District Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the Securities and Exchange Commission’s request to file a amended complaint. The SEC stated that the proposed amended complaint alleged that “that Bank of America learned prior to the Dec. 5, 2008, shareholder meeting vote that Merrill Lynch experienced a net loss of $4.5 billion in October and estimated that it had experienced billions of dollars of additional losses in November. The actual and estimated losses together represented approximately one-third of the value of the merger at the time of the shareholder meeting and more than 60 percent of the aggregate losses Merrill Lynch sustained in the preceding three quarters combined.”

On January 12, 2010, the SEC filed a separate lawsuit concernig these new allegations made in connection with its merger with Merrill Lynch. The new complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York, Case No. 10 Civ 0215.

On September 14, 2009, the District Court rejected a proposed settlement between Bank of America and the SEC. SEC v. Bank of America, Case No. 09 Civ. 6829 (S.D.N.Y.)