ConsumerAffairs.com:

Under heavy fire from critics for the bank's losses in the economic meltdown, former Bank of America chairman Kenneth Lewis will step down as chairman, to be succeeded by Dr. Walter E. Massey. Lewis will remain as President and CEO.

All 18 board members were said to "comfortably" resist votes to remove them from the board, but the vote to split the duties of chairman into different posts was successful. Massey, an accomplished scientist and a member of many corporate governing boards, most recently served as president of his alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

The announcement came after a raucous shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina today, where investors and activists grilled him for pushing the acquisition of debt-riddled Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, as well as for accepting billions in taxpayer money during the first round of bailouts of the financial market last year.

Countrywide, formerly the world's largest mortgage lender, was acquired last year by Bank of America for $4 billion amid rumors that it would seek bankruptcy protection due to mounting losses from the collapsing housing market. The additional acquisition of Merrill Lynch saddled the banking giant with an estimated $70 billion in capital losses, while shareholders saw their investments drop by an average of 76 percent.[..]

The Service Employees' International Union (SEIU) launched a campaign to remove Lewis as chairman, after it was revealed that Bank of America used $25 billion in taxpayer money it received for executive compensation and buyouts of competitors, while squeezing the credit lines of its customers.

SEIU actually liveblogged the shareholder's meeting and deserves all sorts of credit for really holding Lewis's feet to the fire.

I think Lewis should just be grateful that the shareholders didn't opt to treat him the way that Icelanders have treated the bankers that caused their financial crisis. Just sayin'...

No, of course not. Because so far, that little arrangement has been working rather well for them - they got obscenely rich, and we got the tab:

NEW YORK -- Bank of America Corp. rebuffed earlier news reports that its chairman and chief executive, Ken Lewis, intended to suggest to President Barack Obama to separate commercial and investment banking.

The Charlotte bank said in a statement, "Mr. Lewis was referring to people's understanding of banks and how they should view the difference between commercial and investment banks in terms of forming perceptions of their various activities."

The CEO "was not talking about reinstating a legal separation between commercial and investment banking," the statement said. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch & Co., a major investment-banking and brokerage company, in January.

Mr. Lewis, and the leaders of several big banks, met with President Obama in Washington. Following Mr. Lewis' arrival at the White House, Bloomberg News reported that he said a separation of the two businesses should be considered.

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 prohibited banks from having commercial- and investment-banking businesses under one roof, but the law was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The change followed the merger of Citicorp Inc. with Travelers Corp. Inc. to form Citigroup Inc.

Gee, what do you suppose Lewis is hiding?

A major legal battle is brewing between Bank of America President Ken Lewis and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo because the CEO is refusing to hand over a list of Merrill Lynch executives who received $3.6 billion in questionable bonuses right before the banks merged late last year.

"Bank of America has made the decision they don't want to turn that information over to us and we, therefore, tonight served Bank of America with a subpoena to turn over that information," said Special Assistant to the New York Attorney General Benjamin Lawsky Thursday evening, "and we intend to get that by whatever means is necessary going forward."

Lewis met with the attorney general's office for four hours, and he claimed afterward that he fully cooperated.

But New York officials told ABC News the session with Lewis was ugly and combative. They accused Lewis and the bank of stonewalling, saying they refused to provide a list of which executives got what of the billions in bonuses.