The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed an amended complaint in the Bank of America case. Two things caught our attention: one has to do with a new claim in the complaint; another has to do with what isn’t in the amended complaint.
First, the new complaint doesn’t include any additional defendants, and Monday was the deadline for SEC to add parties to the case. So, even though Manhattan federal district court Judge Jed Rakoff has made it clear that he wants to know which living, breathing human beings made the contested disclosure decisions, the SEC so far isn’t pointing the finger at anyone. We should point out that less than a week has gone by since BofA turned over to the SEC the materials that became discoverable after it waived the attorney-client privilege. So it’s certainly possible that the SEC is still analyzing those documents, and may decide to charge others later in a separate case, or ask Rakoff for permission to amend this complaint again.
