The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Bank of America's disclosures to shareholders over $3.6 billion (£2.42 billion) in bonus payments rushed out to Merrill Lynch bankers last December

Mary Schapiro, chairman of America's top financial regulator, told a lawmaker that the SEC was "carefully reviewing" a proxy statement sent by Bank of America to shareholders before they voted on the bank's takeover of Merrill Lynch last December.

The proxy statement did not mention the $3.6 million in performance bonuses paid to Merrill executives in early December, a month ahead of the bank's normal schedule and before fourth quarter results from Merrill revealed a larger than expected $15.8 billion loss.

The bonuses, which went to executives that were already earning at least $300,000 a year, were 22 times higher than those paid by Bank of America to its own bankers.

In a statement to the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee, Bank of America insisted that it was not required to tell its shareholders about the payments.

But Dennis Kucinich, the Congressman who chairs the sub-committee, wrote to Ms Schapiro this month to urge her to investigate whether Bank of America misled investors.

In her reply, Ms Schapiro pointed out that although Bank of America claimed that it had made all the necessary disclosures, the SEC had not made any statement yet on whether that was the case.

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