D-day for Barclays in Lehman’s fight
BARCLAYS will find out if it has won its $11.2 billion (£7.3 billion) legal battle with the US creditors and liquidators of defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers in the New Year.
It is understood that the judge overseeing the case in New York will reveal his verdict in January.
The British bank is being sued by Lehman’s creditors and liquidator, who believe it unfairly profited from its September 2008 acquisition of the investment bank’s US operations, for which it paid $11.2 billion.
The plaintiffs allege that Barclays acquired billions of dollars of assets at a knock-down price, with the help of the investment bank’s former executives. Barclays denies the allegations.
Meanwhile, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the administrator of Lehman’s European operations, is appealing a High Court decision that will force it to divert cash earmarked for creditors to members of the investment bank’s UK pension scheme, which has a £146 million deficit. The Pensions Regulator ordered PWC to divert funds away from creditors to the scheme.
PWC took the case to the High Court and lost, but it is planning to appeal the decision.
Last week it emerged Lehman’s former auditor Ernst & Young is being sued by the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for its part in the banking giant’s collapse.