Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp. agreed to a meeting with a U.S. House committee chairman probing its takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. after the bank missed a deadline to turn over documents the panel sought.

Anne Finucane, the bank’s chief marketing officer, will meet tomorrow with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, the bank announced.

“We are working with the committee on a plan to provide them with the information they need,” said Scott Silvestri, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank. He said the meeting will focus on “how we can meet their needs without violating attorney-client privilege.”

Towns, a New York Democrat, said the documents the bank is withholding “go to the heart of the issues most critical to our investigation.” In a Sept. 18 letter to Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, Towns rejected his claim that the bank records are confidential and protected by attorney- client privilege.

In his letter, Towns said the information may help the committee determine when Bank of America knew of Merrill’s losses and what commitment the federal government made to provide funding for its acquisition of the Wall Street firm.

‘Clearly Irrelevant’

Bank of America bought Merrill on Jan. 1 for $29 billion, including preferred shares. Merrill, then the world’s biggest brokerage, had sought a partner during the same September 2008 weekend in which Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed.

Shareholders and regulators have accused Lewis of failing to disclose Merrill’s mounting losses and $3.6 billion in bonuses for executives before the sale to Bank of America was approved.

Towns said the bank had provided “clearly irrelevant” documents, including e-mails from employees that praised Lewis’s appearance in a CBS television “60 Minutes” interview in October as “awesome.” The bank also had provided an invitation in Chinese to attend a conference on investing in East Asia.

Towns could subpoena the documents, though “the most likely scenario” is to wait until after tomorrow’s meeting before taking further action, said committee spokeswoman Jenny Rosenberg.

Information for Shareholders

“There is considerable evidence that Bank of America violated securities law in withholding from its shareholders information known to Bank of America about mounting losses at Merrill Lynch,” Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who heads the domestic policy subcommittee, said today in a statement.

“The question remains whether Bank of America executives willfully chose to violate securities laws, or received advice from outside counsel to violate the law,” Kucinich said.

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Sept. 30.

The deal is also being investigated by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has subpoenaed five Bank of America board members.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff rejected a $33 million settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America concerning the Merrill Lynch deal. The settlement was reached nine months after the SEC said the bank misled shareholders while buying Merrill Lynch.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net; David Mildenberg in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 6587 or dmildenberg@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 21, 2009 17:15 EDT