Andrew Cuomo has released some of the findings of his probe into the acceleration of Merrill Lynch bonuses from January to December, to beat the deadline for the Bank of America deal. It's not surprising that most of the $3.6 billion bonus pool went to the top dogs. Four people were paid an aggregate of $121 million; the next 10 received $128 million; 20 people were paid more than $8 million; 53 people were paid more than $5 million; 149 people were paid more than $3 million.

The issue here is whether Merrill Lynch broke any laws. That's unclear, though John Thain and Ken Lewis have certainly paid a price in the court of public opinion. And that certainly hasn't stopped Cuomo from blasting them as irresponsible. He accused Merrill Lynch of "secretly moving up its bonus payments to assure they were paid out to the firm's executives before fourth-quarter losses--more than $15 billion--came to light," according to MarketWatch. 

For more:
- here's the MarketWatch article

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