Merrill Lynch misled a congressional committee about the timing of its decision to move up the payment of 2008 bonuses to December, just days before the company was acquired by Bank of America, the New York attorney-general claimed on Wednesday.

In a court filing, Andrew Cuomo, the attorney-general, asked a state judge to force BofA to disclose the amount of bonuses paid to individual Merrill employees last December. So far, BofA has refused to supply that information, saying it wants to preserve the confidentiality of employees.