Can they really do this?#$@@%$^#$%

I'd be very surprised if they could, once ML paid the bonuses they gave up that money. F-ing NY attorney generals in particular have no standing here, they just get their rocks off on going after wall street (and hookers)

Depends on a number of things. I'm assuming the basis is that ML received TARP money and therefore the claim is that the bonuses should not have been allowed. However, I'd be shocked if the TARP funding did not come without a legal document describing the terms of the funding. If the terms do not state that ML could not use the money for bonuses, I'd say that payout is not reversible. Then again, I'm a banker not a lawyer.

~~~~~~~~~~~ CompBanker

I wonder if Thain used TARP money to decorate his office with $1400 garbage disposals.

Thain decorated his office a year ago, so he did not use TARP money.

CompBanker are you sure that Merrill received TARP money? From what I understood Merrill did not get any TARP Money at all, Instead BoA got a bigger amount in anticipation of the merger.

agreed that the return would be very hard to make happen. if it's already been paid out, you'd essentially have 15,000 civil suits on your hand (if you were an MD, would sue over your multimillion dollar bonus? hell yes. even if you were an associate, it would be worth it). it would probably go to arbitration i think, but even there, it would be very hard to convince somebody of the legality of this. if there's no contractual clawback, then taking money for services rendered once you've paid them would be sticky to say the least.

but again, also not a lawyer.

Cuomo's a joke. He's got no jurisdiction, he's just trying to rile up the unwashed masses.

Cuomo, Geitner and Obama have been listening to too much T.I. lately. They'll soon learn that they can't do whatever they want. No where in TARP did it stipulate where the money could go and besides, pretty sure Merrill never took TARP money considering they were essentially a capsized boat in the process of being saved by BofA at the time.

Cuomo can go fuck himself.

It's clear he wants to be Governor or Senator.

Fuck this guy.

another thing I was thinking of, is why NY would want this money returned?

Last I heard they were using a fall in bonuses as a convenient scapegoat for being unable to balance a budget. If the 10bn were returned, that would cost NY and NYC around 1.5bn.

On that line, even if you think the TARP paid for these bonuses, it only covered 5bn of them, because the other 5bn came right back in taxes.

He's no Rivers Cuomo

Wasn't really discussing the amount as much as the idea of lost tax revenue, but still should have double checked the quote before citing figures

You're pretty much right about the structure of the payouts, looking back on news articles here is how it was structured:

"In October, BofA received $15 billion in TARP funding under the Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program for banks. At that time, Treasury also pledged to inject $10 billion into Merrill Lynch, once its acquisition by BofA was complete. When the purchase of Merrill was completed on Jan. 1, the injection was completed."

( http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/bofa-shares… )

So it seems the 10bn was injected in to Merrill at the time it was taken over by BoA, so in legal terms I'm not sure whether it technically ever went to ML, but in practice it all went straight to BoA.

I think it is pretty clear to all that nowhere in there does Cuomo have a case or the jurisdiction to make one.