After the bursting of the dot-com bubble, many US sell side firms were accused of self-dealing in a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The charges were formally brought against several Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts. In addition to the business done with buy side firms as described above, sell side firms also performed investment banking services for corporations, such as stock and debt offerings, loans, etc. These corporate clients generally did not like to see negative press put out about their own companies. To try to prevent the publishing of negative research, corporate clients would pressure the sell side firms by threatening to withhold lucrative banking business or equally lucrative shares in IPOs - essentially bribing the sell side firm. While the $1.4 billion settlement of this lawsuit made significant progress in cleaning up the industry in the US, it is notable that the lawsuit only went after sell side firms, leaving the arguably equally culpable corporations relatively unscathed.