Ben Bernanke was yesterday forced to make an unusual public defence of his actions as a bank regulator amid accusations he overstepped his authority during the frantic talks over Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

Armed with hundreds of pages of subpoenaed e-mails, the House oversight committee asked the Federal Reserve chairman whether he and his staff forced BofA to go through with the deal, hid details from other regulators and threatened to fire chief executive Ken Lewis if he tried to pull out.

Mr Lewis has said he considered invoking a “material adverse change” clause to cancel the deal when he learnt of losses at Merrill. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)