THE US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Monday it had asked a federal judge in Manhattan to allow it to file the new civil charges against the biggest US bank. But the SEC also said it wouldn’t charge any individual Bank of America executives, directors or attorneys because they are not alleged to have “deliberately concealed” information from the bank’s outside attorneys or otherwise acted with intent to mislead.

Bank of America said it was glad the regulators had found no basis to charge any individuals or to assert a charge of fraud against the bank.

However, it added, “Despite this vindication, we believe the new claims the SEC seeks to bring are without merit and we will oppose this motion.”

The SEC and Bank of America, which is SEC for not pursuing charges against individual executives of Bank of America — a course the SEC said Monday it wouldn’t pursue.

US District Judge Jed Rakoff also called the proposed settlement a breach of “justice and morality,” and said it unfairly penalised Bank of America shitted us to pursue these charges in a separate complaint, SEC spokesman John Nester said in a statement. “As a result, we intend to file promptly our allegations that Bank of America failed to disclose the Merrill Lynch losses.”

The SEC said it would charge Bank of America with failing to disclose “extraordinary financial losses” at Merrill in the two months preceding the shareholders’ December 5, 2008, vote approving the takeover of the storied Wall Street brokerage house.

The regulators said they would allege that Bank of America “erroneously and negligently concluded that no disclosure concerning these extraordinary losses was required as shareholders were called upon to vote on the proposed merger with Merrill Lynch.”

The US$20-billion deal was forged at the height of the financial crisis, on the same September weekend that Lehman Brothers collapsed. It was first questioned after Bank of America disclosed that Merrill would post 2008 losses of US$27.6 billion — far more than expected. Bank of America, which had already received US$25 billion in US bailout aid, then asked for and received an additional US$20 billion from the government to help offset those losses.

The SEC last year accused Bank of America of failing to disclose to shareholders that it had authorised Merrill to pay up to US$5.8 billion in bonuses to its employees in 2008 despite the steep losses.