Lehman Shareholders Sue Ernst & Young

　　A class-action lawsuit by former shareholders of Lehman Brothers has been amended to add the defunct investment bank’s auditing firm, Ernst & Young, as a defendant.

　　The amended complaint from a group of investors also describes the repurchase transactions detailed in the report of bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas. The Lehman shareholder suit was originally filed following wipe-out losses stemming from the firm’s Sept. 15, 2008, bankruptcy filing, the largest in U.S. history. Investors allege that in the period leading to the bankruptcy, former Lehman officers, including ex-CEO Richard Fuld, made repeated misstatements about the firm’s financial health, including minimizing Lehman’s exposure to weakening residential and commercial real estate markets.

　　In the newly filed complaint, plaintiffs claim that Lehman used certain repurchase and resale transactions, known as “Repo 105” and “Repo 108” transactions, to temporarily remove tens of billions of dollars’ worth of assets from its balance sheet at the end of financial reporting periods, and that Lehman executed the repo agreements solely to fraudulently prop up its disclosure statements.

　　Advertisement

　　The complaint takes note of Valukas’ testimony to the House Committee on Financial Services in April: “[T]he public did not know there were holes in the reported liquidity pool, nor did it know that Lehman’s risk controls were being ignored, or that reported leverage numbers were artificially deflated. Billions of Lehman shares traded on misinformation.”

　　The amended complaint further notes Valukas’s statement that Ernst & Young “knew or should have known” that parts of Lehman’s financial statements were false and misleading. “Ernst & Young had a professional obligation to communicate the issue to both senior management and the Audit Committee and to recommend corrections of the Forms 10-Q, and also to either issue modified review reports noting the materially inadequate disclosures, or to withhold its review reports altogether,” said Valukas.

　　The complaint notes that the Big Four auditor was made aware of Lehman’s improper use of Repo 105 transactions during its investigation of claims made by a whistleblower.

　　Ernst & Young disputes the claims in the amended lawsuit.

　　“We are confident in our ability to successfully defend ourselves against claims arising from our work with Lehman Brothers,” said a statement forwarded by Ernst & Young spokesman Charles Perkins. “Throughout our period as the auditor of Lehman, we firmly believe our work met all applicable professional standards, applying the rules that existed at the time. Lehman’s bankruptcy was the result of a series of unprecedented adverse events in the financial markets. As the Bankruptcy Examiner has acknowledged, Lehman's bankruptcy was caused by a collapse in its liquidity, which in turn was caused by declining asset values and loss of market confidence in Lehman. It was not caused by any accounting issues.”

　　The Lehman action was brought in the Southern District of New York before Judge Lewis Kaplan. In addition to Fuld, defendants include Lehman’s former CFO, members of its board of directors and various institutions that underwrote Lehman debt and equity offerings.

　　The securities law firm Barroway Topaz, Bernstein Litowitz and other firms jointly represent the lead plaintiffs: five pension funds based in the U.S., Europe and Guam that owned more than 140 million shares of Lehman equity. Nearly a dozen individual and institutional investors joined the co-lead plaintiffs in the suit.

雷曼股東起訴安永

　　雷曼兄弟原股東已經(jīng)將這家倒閉投行的審計(jì)公司——安永追加為被告人。

　　股東們聲稱，在申請(qǐng)破產(chǎn)之前，包括前首席執(zhí)行官RichardFuld在內(nèi)的雷曼高管多次誤報(bào)公司的財(cái)務(wù)狀況，包括減少了雷曼對(duì)日益衰退的住宅和商業(yè)地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)敞口。

　　修改后的指控進(jìn)一步指出了破產(chǎn)檢察官Valukas的聲明：安永“知道或者應(yīng)當(dāng)知道”雷曼的部分財(cái)務(wù)報(bào)表存在虛假和誤導(dǎo)性。“安永應(yīng)具有專業(yè)義務(wù)就報(bào)表存在的問(wèn)題和高級(jí)管理層以及審計(jì)委員會(huì)進(jìn)行溝通并建議在表格10-Q進(jìn)行更正，或發(fā)表保留審核報(bào)告指出其報(bào)表存在重大不當(dāng)披露，或拒絕發(fā)表審核報(bào)告意見(jiàn)，”Valukas說(shuō)。

　　“我們有信心為訴訟進(jìn)行辯護(hù)”安永發(fā)言人CharlesPerkins說(shuō)。“在作為雷曼審計(jì)師期間，我們堅(jiān)信我們的工作符合當(dāng)時(shí)存在的所有適用的專業(yè)準(zhǔn)則。雷曼兄弟的破產(chǎn)是由于金融市場(chǎng)上一連串前所未有的不利事件所引發(fā)。破產(chǎn)檢察官也已經(jīng)承認(rèn)，雷曼兄弟的破產(chǎn)是由于其喪失了流動(dòng)性，而這又是由于資產(chǎn)價(jià)格不斷下跌和市場(chǎng)喪失了信心所造成的。它不是由任何會(huì)計(jì)問(wèn)題所引起的。”

　　雷曼訴訟被送達(dá)至紐約南部地區(qū)法官LewisKaplan.除了Fuld，被告還包括雷曼前首席財(cái)務(wù)官、董事會(huì)成員、各類承銷雷曼債券和股票發(fā)行的機(jī)構(gòu)。

　　證券律師事務(wù)所BarrowayTopaz，BernsteinLitowitz和其他公司聯(lián)合代表原告：在美國(guó)、歐洲和關(guān)島5個(gè)養(yǎng)老金基金，它們共持有超過(guò)1.4億股的雷曼股票。十余位個(gè)人和機(jī)構(gòu)投資者也加入了這場(chǎng)集體訴訟。