John Thain, the Wall Street veteran who was ousted from Merrill Lynch following its takeover by Bank of America (BoA), has fired back at attempts to blame him for the investment bank's surprise loss and controversial bonus payments.

Mr Thain was asked to leave the company in January by Kenneth Lewis, BoA's chief executive, after the announcement of Merrill's $15.8 billion fourth-quarter loss. Days later, it was reported that $3.6 billion in bonuses were paid to Merrill's bankers in December, a month ahead of schedule.

BoA has since claimed that the decision to pay the bonuses early was made solely by Mr Thain. Mr Lewis told a Congressional committee in February that BoA urged Mr Thain not to make the payments but had "no authority" to stop them because Merrill was a separate company until the takeover closed in January.

Sources close to BoA also accused Mr Thain of having kept secret Merrill's mounting losses from Mr Lewis and of going on skiing holiday in December when the flood of red ink was emerging.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published today, Mr Thain talked at length about his ousting for the first time and made a series of explosive claims about BoA and Mr Lewis.

"Getting fired is one thing. But nobody has the right to say things that they know aren't true," he told the WSJ.

Mr Thain insisted that Mr Lewis knew that the bonus payments were being made ahead of schedule and agreed to them in writing. The WSJ reported that this claim was backed up by documents reviewed by the newspaper.

"The suggestion Bank of America was not heavily involved in this process, and that I alone made these decisions, is simply not true," Mr Thain said.

He added that several other BoA executives were on holiday at the same time as him, including Mr Lewis and Neil Cotty, BoA's chief accounting officer, who was at the time in the process of pouring over Merrill's books.

He said that about 200 BoA employees, including Mr Cotty, had moved into Merrill's offices soon after the takeover announcement in September. Dozens of workers were monitoring Merrill's financial situation on a daily basis, making it impossible for BoA not to have know about growing losses at the investment bank, Mr Thain said.

BoA told the WSJ that it "stands by statements it has made", with the bank's spokesman adding that BoA "believe that it is time to move on".

However, Mr Lewis is expected to face tough questioning from investors at the bank's annual general meeting on Wednesday.

In testimony to the New York Attorney General, who is investigating the bonus payments, released last week Mr Lewis said that BoA was forced to go through with the $50 billion takeover by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury.

If he did not finalise the deal, he was told by Hank Paulson, the then-Treasury Secretary, that he would cause the financial system to collapse and that he and the BoA board would be removed.

Shareholders are furious that they were not told of Merrill's losses until after they had approved the takeover.

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