Lehman assets
December 30, 2009
The joint administrators of Lehman Brothers Europe have said that an agreement has been reached to return more than $11 billion of clients' assets.
After months of negotiations, more than 90 percent of the affected clients agreed to the Claim Resolution Agreement (CRA) proposed by Lehman's insolvency administrator PricewaterhouseCooper.
The agreement came into effect immediately, giving the victims of the bank's collapse time until March 19, 2010 to hand in their claims. The available assets are to be repaid after that deadline.
"I am delighted that we have received overwhelming support for this arrangement to return assets to clients," Steve Pearson of PriceWaterhouseCoopers said.
"The CRA now provides an agreed basis on which to systematically settle clients' claims and reunite them with their assets."
On the eve of its collapse Lehman Brothers Europe held $32 billion in client assets. So far, only $13.3 billion have been returned.
The implosion of the investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 set off a global financial crisis and placed severe strains on many creditor banks.
ai/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Chuck Penfold