Friday, March 26, 2010 Lehman Examiner’s Report Misleading, Lawyers Say By Linda Sandler @ Businessweek
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. lawyers said the examiner who reviewed the firm’s collapse included misleading statements in his report about Barclays Plc’s purchase of the Lehman brokerage.
Examiner Anton Valukas’s March 11 report quoted a Lehman lawyer, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP partner Thomas Roberts, as saying Barclays’s purchase of the brokerage unit was intended to be a “wash,” with neither gains nor losses for the buyer, according to letters filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
The law firm wrote that Valukas omitted statements that “the wash” was merely theoretical and there was no provision for a break-even deal in the sale agreement.
Lehman is seeking to recover $11 billion from Barclays, claiming the bank received a secret discount when it bought the brokerage. Barclays disputes that claim.
Weil Gotshal’s letter was addressed to Valukas’s law firm, Jenner & Block LLP, and was sent to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck by Barclays’s law firm, Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, according to today’s filing.
Valukas stands by his report, his partner Robert Byman responded today in a letter to Weil Gotshal.
“We believe we have accurately recounted Mr. Robert’s statements to us, and we respectfully disagree with your assertion that there is anything misleading about the account in the report,” Byman wrote.
The judge today received letters from the Futures Industry Association and the National Futures Association saying he should not approve Valukas’s request to publicize bidders for $2 billion in Lehman assets auctioned after the September 2008 bankruptcy by the exchange CME Group Inc. |