UPDATE: US Regulators, Former Lehman CEO Clash At Hearing
Datum : 01/09/2010 @ 17h13
Quelle : Dow Jones News
Name : Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ)
Kurs : 0.056 0.0 (0.00%) @ 16h22
UPDATE: US Regulators, Former Lehman CEO Clash At Hearing
Lehman Brothers Hldgs (OTC) (USOTC:LEHMQ)
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Heute : Thursday 2 September 2010
Nearly two years after the failure of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ), disagreement and some confusion continues to dominate.
Lehman's former chief executive, Richard Fuld, struck a defiant stance Wednesday, defending the strength of the company even at the end and faulting regulators for deciding not to aid it.
That view was sharply challenged by top Federal Reserve officials, who testified before the same congressionally created panel charged with probing the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.
Fuld blamed the company's demise both on "uncontrollable market forces" and damaging false rumors that undermined confidence and triggered a run on the otherwise sound bank.
Fuld also argued that the Fed could have done more to avert his company's collapse--or at least eased its suffering. His attack dovetails with that of critics who claim the government's failure to save Lehman Brothers in September 2008 touched off a cascade of crises at other financial institutions.
Fuld and one of Lehman's top lawyers, Harvey Miller of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, invoked issues of fairness as well.
If the Fed believed the systemic risk of a Lehman failure were great, as emails show Fed officials did, someone could have come up with a solution to avoid bankruptcy for Lehman, said Miller. "Someone found a way in the automobile industry. Somebody could have found a way" for Lehman, he said.
Fuld said the same forces that led to Lehman's demise threatened the stability of other banks. "But Lehman was the only firm that was mandated by government regulators to file for bankruptcy. The government then was forced to intervene to protect those other firms and the entire financial system," Fuld said.
In particular, Fuld contended that Fed officials told Lehman it wasn't allowed to access its Primary Dealer Credit Facility on Sept. 14, 2008, for which the Fed had announced expanded types of qualifying collateral that day. Miller confirmed that the Fed told Lehman and its advisers they could access the expanded facility only once its parent company filed for bankruptcy.
Thomas Baxter, general counsel of the New York Fed, said Lehman officials are wrong on that point. He said the Fed sent Lehman a letter clarifying this point in a letter on Sept. 14.
Despite lengthy debate and discussion, the investigative panel was unable to sort out the confusion surrounding the liquidity facility and Lehman's access to it.
Fuld wasn't completely unapologetic. "Did we do everything right? We clearly did not," he said. Among Lehman's mistakes, the company had too much commercial real estate and "less liquid assets" and not enough capital, but Lehman had addressed those issues, he said.
But aid from the Fed could have given Lehman more time to orchestrate a calmer unwinding or even eventually found a merger partner, he insisted. Plus, the Fed mandated that Lehman file for bankruptcy, he said.
Baxter and Fed General Counsel Scott Alvarez painted a very different picture, insisting that federal regulators did all they could to help Lehman--up until the point their authority ran out. They argued that there was no viable buyer for Lehman once Barclays PLC (BCS, BARC.LN) couldn't get a regulatory exemption from its U.K. regulator to buy it.
But Fuld insisted that "we did have a buyer" in Barclays, suggesting that with more time--provided via help from the Fed--the deal could have been worked out. He also referred to "four or five" other deals he was discussing to improve Lehman's situation.
"The Federal Reserve did not 'allow' Lehman Brothers to die," Baxter argued. "Instead, the Federal Reserve, the United States Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and others tried hard to save it--not for its own sake, of course, but for the sake of all the families and businesses who would be 'harmed' by a failure," he said.
In prepared testimony, Baxter also refuted Fuld's argument that Lehman wasn't as bad off as the market believed. Lehman faced "very serious" challenges, including capital deficiency, liquidity loss and low market confidence.
Defending the Fed's decision not to extend the investment bank help under its 13(3) emergency lending power, Baxter told the panel that the Fed didn't believe the liquidity run Lehman was facing would ever end, even with Fed help.
The panel, known as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, also on Wednesday examined the near failure of Wachovia Corp. (WB) at the height of the financial crisis. Officials at the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said the new Dodd-Frank financial regulation law would fix a regulatory gap that prevented regulators from reining in individual financial institutions, such as Wachovia, whose size and risk-taking posed a threat to the entire financial system.
-By Victoria McGrane, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9267; victoria.mcgrane@dowjones.com
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