Barclays Says Lehman Contract Entitles It to Disputed Assets
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April 6 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc, fighting a lawsuit seeking the return of an alleged “secret” $11 billion profit on the purchase of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage, said it wants to be paid money it was promised.
Britain’s second-largest bank said in a court filing late yesterday it was entitled to funds including $769 million in securities held in Lehman’s customer reserve account and asked for an order for it to be given all undelivered assets.
The trustee for the brokerage, which is holding $3 billion sought by Barclays, says the bank owes brokerage clients a total of $6.7 billion. Separately, the Lehman parent company seeks $11 billion from Barclays related to the sale. Barclays bought the brokerage after Lehman declared bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008, amid concern that the global banking system was on the verge of collapse and the Lehman brokerage faced liquidation.
“Barclays would not have agreed” to a purchase with the conditions the trustee is now seeking, it said in the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
The British bank said it faced exposure for losses of more than $1.1 billion on proprietary options it took over, rejecting claims by the trustee that they were “a market opportunity.”
As the financial markets recovered, the brokerage prospered. Separate lawsuits seeking to reopen the sale contract were filed in November by Lehman, its creditors and the trustee, James Giddens. Lehman this month said new evidence about Barclays’s undisclosed gains required U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck to reconsider his approval of the sale in September 2008.
Scheduled Decision
Peck is scheduled to decide April 9 whether the case will proceed to a non-jury trial set for April 26.
Barclays, the only bidder for Lehman’s brokerage and real estate in September 2008, paid $1.54 billion for those assets. As part of the deal, the London-based bank took on liabilities for those assets.
The bank paid $45 billion for securities valued at $49.7 billion, according to a filing this January by Barclays.
Lehman, listing $639 billion in assets, filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
The cases are In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 08-13555, and James W. Giddens v. Barclays Capital Inc., 09-01732, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in New York at lsandler@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: April 6, 2010 01:57 EDT
Quelle: www.bloomberg.com/apps/...01087&sid=aNRr4rz.o9UQ&pos=7
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