The Federal Reserve is trying to prevent chairman Ben Bernanke from having to testify about its relationship with Bank of America. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Federal Reserve is fighting a subpoena from lawyers in a civil lawsuit who want the central bank's chairman, Ben Bernanke, to testify about conversations he had with Bank of AmericaCorp. executives before the lender completed its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co.
The three-year-old class-action suit alleges that the Charlotte, N.C., bank and Kenneth D. Lewis, then its chief executive, misled shareholders about ballooning losses at Merrill before the $19.4 billion acquisition was approved. The government provided $20 billion in U.S. aid after Bank of America officials told Mr. Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in December 2008 that they might abandon the deal because of the losses. …
When senior Fed officials have been asked to testify in past civil cases, the central bank has generally found lower-level officials to provide the information being sought—an approach the Fed is trying to take in this case.