Cleary Lawyer Calls Out Cuomo
Yesterday, we covered Andrew Cuomo’s letter to Bank of America. In it, the New York Attorney General ask BofA to essentially waive its attorney client privilege and allow the AG’s office to question BofA outside counsel at Cleary Gottlieb.
Update: The NYAG is looking to talk to the lawyers who consulted on the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger. Cuomo wants to talk to attorneys at Wachtell and Shearman & Sterling. He is not asking to talk to Cleary lawyers about their work for the bank.
Today, Cleary commercial litigation partner Lewis Liman, fired back at New York’s chief lawyer. The Charlotte Observer has the details:
“First, the basic premise of the letter is simply wrong,” Bank of America’s attorney, Lewis Liman, wrote in the bank’s response. “Bank of America has not put at issue the subject matter of any advice of counsel. Nor has Bank of America offered reliance on legal advice as a justification for its disclosures. Bank of America’s position has been clear and consistent throughout: the proxy statement and related disclosures complied with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Because Bank of America did not violate the law, it has not offered reliance on legal advice as a defense.”
Lewis Liman? That sounds more like something Josh Lyman would write.
Apparently, the NYAG isn’t the only one that knows how to litigate in through the press. More from Liman and Bank of America, after the jump.
The blistering response from Cleary did not end with questioning Andrew Cuomo’s comprehension skills. It went on to suggest that Cuomo doesn’t understand that a telephone can be used to receive calls, not just place outgoing calls to the New York Times:
Bank of America also lashed out at Cuomo’s office for refusing to meet with Bank of America’s lawyers to discuss the investigation.“We should note that we have repeatedly asked to meet with your Office to explain the relevant facts with respect to each of the matters the letter states are under investigation,” Liman wrote. “Each of those requests has been rejected. We do not understand your Office’s apparent refusal to meet with Bank of America’s counsel and to hear Bank of America and Merrill Lynch’s side of the story, including why there is no basis for seeking to invade the attorney-client privilege here.”
In high school, this is about the time where people like me start running up and down the halls yelling “Fight! Fight! It’s on, it is so on!”
Or, as our friends at Dealbreaker explain it:
If “The worst thing that will ever happen to him is when he and I meet in the room and I close the door” can’t get the Hulk fired up, let’s hope “the basic premise of the letter is simply wrong” and “the letter contains a number of spurious and false allegations” can.
The ball is in your court, Mr. Cuomo. Looks like Mr. Liman “doesn’t know it’s a damn show. He thinks its a damn fight.”
BofA fires back in feud with N.Y. attorney general [Charlotte Observer]
Is This Enough For You Andrew Cuomo? [Dealbreaker]
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Comments
Vegas, baby. Vegas!
Cuomo is just a POS politician trying to make a name for himself.
your friends at dealbreaker wrote a very awkward sentence.
The Charlotte Observer? Really?
Jeff Rosenthal is no Bee Arthur.
3, why else do you think they're friends?
Liman and CGSH are no joke..Go Cleary
Kash, did Elie ever replace the turducken he took from your desk?
Suggestion: Create two ATL sites. One for the big boys and another - Junior ATL - for small firms in small cities. Hate to sound like a snob, but I don't come to this site for stories about some firm I've never heard of. The new site could be called Below the Law or Below Above the Law.
eighth
Cuomo is an ass
8 - Now that's funny.
8- first time I've ever laughed out loud at a comment no ATL
8- first time I've ever laughed out loud at a comment on ATL
8 = win
9 = fast becoming the dumbest meme on ATL
cleary caters to bofa - the walmart of banks?
charlotte observer? is there no other story?
9 - already the dumbest theme.
This person needs a turducken drumstick shoved up their exit port.
That sad thing about #9 is knowing that the guy keeps it typed up, so he can just copy and paste the same stupid comment over and over. Pathetic.
ML hijacked a shit-ton of money from taxpayers by accelerating bonuses (based on year-end results, according to the proxy) to before year-end to circumvent $14B+ of losses, pursuant to which senior management would get $0
to hide behing priv in that case is shameless
and what of the lewis et al's knowledge of the losses that weren't put to shareholders?
3, Dealbreaker makes Elie look like Vladimir Nabokov.
I'm glad Limon took my advice...Look's like Cuomo fucked with the wrong Marine!
What'd Cuomo think...he could have some TTT assistant draft a letter, flash a badge and that'd make CGSH nervous?
Limon did his job, and he'd do it again...maybe next time Cuomo will learn to extend CGSH some fucking courtesy.
Really though - from a governance perspective, this is tragic...all Cuomo's done is weaken the office of the NY AG - and given the fact the last guy in there raw-dogged a butterfaced whore, that takes some doin'!
This board's coverage of the issue in this case is disgraceful. It's not just Cuomo who is asking for this information, but also, Jed Rakoff, who is handling the SEC case against BOA. And they did assert advice of counsel as a defense!
21 -- "raw-dogged a butterfaced whore" ---- poetry
21 -- "raw-dogged a butterfaced whore" ---- poetry
Guys in my high school . . . abuse of power . . . political gain . . . .
This post is biased in a pro Cleary direction. Please post Latham news to balance it.
The letter is publicly available and yet ATL summarizes other press analysis instead of providing its own.
Pathetic, yet predictable.
22- how is "advice of counsel" equivalent to an a-c privilege claim?
@22, Rakoff asked for more details from BoA and the SEC relating to the settlement, he did not ask for Cleary, who did not advise either party to the merger, to provide privileged materials. If Cuomo thinks that BoA violated a law and the advice from counsel was wrong, he can bring charges. That he might be able to charge more people with crimes if he looked at privileged information is true in thousands and thousands of criminal investigations where privilege is not breached. All the US attorneys would have to do is find a mob lawyer and go through all of his files and he'd be able to indict dozens of people. But that's not how the rule of law works, even if you really, really hate investment banks.
jason bourne would snap cuomo's neck in a motel bathroom in albany. apparently cuomo has gone after the wrong director/producer's brother.
28:
You are an effing moron. 22 never said that advice of counsel is "equivalent" to a-c privilege. I don't even know what that could possibly mean.
she wasn't a butterface. Every time i see her picture in the post I'm proud of that hoss
Guys at my highschool raw-dogged butterfaced whores all the time....
I'm sure most, it not all of the comments on this blog are posted by lawyers. Lawyers who graduated from reputable schools and now work at repudable firms. That's why it is really shocking to me that at least 75% of the comments on this blog are so crude and abnoxious. Worthy of nothing more than a street corner conversation. Grow up people. Many of you sound like total a-holes.