Bank of America Corp. said second-quarter profit slid 43 percent as the banking giant was again weighed down by large one-time legal charges and a slump in mortgage originations, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bank of America said it had resolved private lawsuits with American International Group Inc. over mortgage securities it sold in the financial crisis. The bank will pay AIG $650 million to settle lawsuits that the insurance company filed, alleging that Bank of America, as well as Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America bought in 2008 and 2009, had been misleading about the quality of mortgage securities it sold. AIG also agreed to stop objecting to an $8.5 billion settlement that Bank of America had reached with private investors, including AIG. For the quarter, Charlotte-based Bank of America reported a profit of $2.29 billion, compared with $4.01 billion a year earlier. The results include a litigation charge of $4 billion, up from a year earlier charge of $471 million.
