Briefly Noted: Schapiro in, Schumer Bill MIA, B of A Suit

The New York Times reported today that Senators Charles Schumer and Richard Shelby introduced legislation that would allocate lots of money to fight financial fraud. You can stop looking for it. It appears that the NYT article appears was written on the strength of a press release (reprinted here by TP Muckraker). The bill has not yet been introduced.

Bloomberg reports that Bank of American has been sued over its merger with Merrill Lynch. The suit is based on the idea, explored by the Deal Professor on Monday, that B of A knew that Merrill was about to post a huge loss and neglected to include this information in the merger proxy.

The suit was filed in the Southern District of New York (Sklar v. B of A, 1:09cv00580). The complaint is available on Westlaw. Call up the docket, and you'll find a link to a pdf of the original document.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Mary Schapiro has been unanimously confirmed to be chairman of the SEC.