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Just in... Lehman Examiner to Publish CME Auction Documents (Update1)

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-14/lehman-examiner-to-publish-cme-auction-documents-update1-.html


Lehman Examiner to Publish CME Auction Documents (Update1)
April 14, 2010, 10:34 AM EDT
By Linda Sandler and Donald Jeffrey

April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas won permission from a judge to publish previously censored details of a report on a $2 billion auction of Lehman collateral that he says caused $1.2 billion in losses.

Futures and options exchange CME Group Inc. sold the Lehman collateral and clearing deposits to three successful bidders after the auction, giving Lehman “less than reasonably equivalent value” in return, examiner Valukas said in his partly censored March 11 report on the 2008 bankruptcy.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge James M. Peck agreed that the redacted portions should be unsealed to test the fairness of the auction process, which benefited the buyers. CME had sought to keep the documents confidential.

“The claims of confidentiality are weak,” Peck said. “The arguments concerning potential future harm to events that may never occur are so speculative as to be discounted close to zero.”

The case is In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 08-13555, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

--Editors: John Pickering

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in New York at [e-mail].

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at [e-mail].