Ken Lewis, the recently retired chief executive of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Joe Price, the bank's former chief financial officer, have been charged with fraud related to TARP (troubled asset relief programme) bail-out funds.
After more than a year of investigation, the office of Andrew Cuomo, New York attorney-general, has determined that Mr Price misled BofA's general counsel as to the severity of Merrill Lynch's losses in Q4 2008, and on 4 February filed civil charges against both Mr Price and Mr Lewis.
