Judge orders BOA to reveal names

NEW YORK, March 19 (UPI) -- A judge said Bank of America must reveal the names of employees who received bonuses that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has called extravagant.

Citing the employees' right to privacy, the bank filed a petition to block Cuomo from revealing the names.

On Wednesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried denied the bank's motion to allow the state to have the names under a confidentiality agreement. The judge also denied a motion to shield Merrill Lynch's former Chief Executive Officer John Thain's subpoenaed testimony from pubic scrutiny.

The judge said he found the bank's petition hypocritical, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. "The record indicates that Bank of America has not taken the kind of measures to protect the secrecy of its employee-compensation information that one would expect it to have taken if this information were a trade secret," the judge said.

A spokesman for the company said the bank would comply with the order.

The state has claimed the $3.6 billion in bonus checks given to Merrill Lynch employees before Bank of American took it over was extravagant given the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds the banks accepted in the midst of a financial crisis.