Ticket #3439 (new)

Opened 6 months ago

New 3-stage cigarette filter prevents tar from reaching lungs

Reported by: "Anti Tar" <New3-StageCigaretteFilter@…> Owned by:
Priority: normal Milestone: 2.11
Component: none Version: 3.8.0
Severity: medium Keywords:
Cc: Language:
Patch status: Platform:

Description

New 3-stage cigarette filter prevents tar from reaching lungs

http://dronox.us/Af8d0FgbHAm-tv-3ggSiykDbr0V-X3DxwEWVIpUfiju9DtRYbA

http://dronox.us/M1SFac8H87zX0UeseXdVgYD50z2Ygk7QMT5bVHo4PEU_EwrJ8Q

ust 3, 2009, Bank of America agreed to pay a $33 million fine, without admission or denial of charges, to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the non-disclosure of an agreement to pay up to $5.8 billion of bonuses at Merrill. The bank approved the bonuses before the merger but did not disclose them to its shareholders when the shareholders were considering approving the Merrill acquisition, in December 2008. The issue was originally investigated by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who commented after the suit and announced a settlement that "the timing of the bonuses, as well as the disclosures relating to them, constituted a 'surprising fit of corporate irresponsibility'" and "our investigation of these and other matters pursuant to New York's Martin Act will continue." Congressman Kucinich commented at the same time that "This may not be the last fine that Bank of America pays for how it handled its merger of Merrill Lynch." A federal judge, Jed Rakoff, in
  an unusual action, refused to approve the settlement on August 5. A first hearing before the judge on August 10 was at times heated, and he was "sharply critic" of the bonuses. David Rosenfeld represented the SEC, and Lewis J. Liman, son of Arthur L. Liman, represented the bank. The actual amount of bonuses paid was $3.6 billion, of which $850 million was "guaranteed" and the rest was shared amongst 39,000 workers who received average payments of $91,000; 696 people received more than $1 million in bonuses; at least one person received a more than $33 million bonus.

On September 14, the judge rejected the settlement and told the parties to prepare for trial to begin no later than February 1, 2010. The judge focused much of his criticism on the fact that the fine in the case would be paid by the bank's shareholders, who were the ones that were supposed to have been injured by the lack of disclosure. He wrote, "It is quite something else for the very management that is accused of having lied to its shareholders to determine how much of those victims' money should be used to make the case against the management go away," ... "The proposed settlement," the judge continued, "suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the bank's management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the sharehold

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