The ever watchful footnoted.org catches an interesting detail in recent Bank of American filings. Former MBNA CEO Bruce Hammonds was given a nice bit of compensation packaging back when the two firms merged.

Bank of America is clearly conscious of its public compensation profile (who isn't in this environment) and some of the.. shall we say "finer vagaries" of their filings might reflect that, but we think footnoted might have found something here.

Now, maybe Bank of America is getting a bargain with this new agreement. But if they are, why do they seem to be taking the extra effort to bury the details? It's impossible to tell from Bank of America's filings how much -- if any -- of that $22.7 million has already been paid. And without that, it just looks like another TARP beneficiary -- and a deeply troubled one at that -- giving another generous goodbye gift to another top executive.

Certainly, these terms were negotiated long ago, and the changes to what was originally a retention agreement are related to the retirement of Hammonds in December, but this looks like trouble. (After all, the cancellation agreement contains the dreaded phrase "...the Executive shall have access to aircraft for personal travel under specified guidelines for a limited period of time in order to transition from MBNA practices....")

Bank of America's gift to former MBNA CEO... [Footnoted.org]