[ by Melanie Gretchen ] Bank of America's Merrill Lynch will pay 2 former brokers $10.2 million, a FINRA panel ruled that the firm fraudulently denied the brokers' deferred compensation.  After Bank of America acquired Merrill late in 2008, the brokerage unit "intentionally, willfully and deliberately breached its fiduciary duty" by depriving them of their rights to collect money from deferred compensation plans. FINRA Findings and Allegations. Tamara Smolchek and Meri Ramazio were awarded punitive damages totaling $5 million and compensatory damages totaling $5.2 million including unpaid wages, unpaid deferred compensation, lost wages, lost book, value of business, and reputation. Under the terms of several of Merrill's deferred compensation programs, brokers who left the firm with "good reason" would have vesting rights to money amassed in their tax-deferred accounts.  To date, more than the 3,000 financial advisers who left the brokerage after the acquisition are seeking compensation they say was wrongly denied.  The panel said it was "shocked" that not one of those claims has been approved for vesting. Stand-Out Case. What makes this case remarkable is the panel's reasoning in this case.  "This decision is very atypical because most FINRA decisions are light on the evidence and have very little analysis of the case itself," said New Jersey-based industry lawyer Tom Lewis, referring to the 16-page document outlining the arbitration award. "There was no credible documentation of any protocol for making decisions, reasons for decisions, guidelines for determining approval/denial, or any evidence that any investigation was conducted for the Claimants' claims," the panel said in the arbitration document released on Wednesday. For further details, go to [Reuters, 4/4/12].