British law firm ‘conspired’ to hide $50bn debts of Wall St giant

Daily Mail
Saturday, March 13, 2010

A top British law firm helped stricken banking giant Lehman Brothers hide its debts in the run-up to the bank’s collapse, a report said yesterday.

Linklaters, one of the City’s ‘magic circle’ law practices, signed off questionable accounting techniques to disguise $50billion (£36billion) debts.

The 2,200-page report, published yesterday in America, found that Linklaters allowed ‘balance sheet manipulation’ while investors remained in the dark as to what was going on.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

Crucially, Lehman had turned to the UK after it failed to find an American law firm who would sign off the activities, the report said.

Linklaters advised Lehman that the accounting practice was allowed under English law.

Full story here.

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