Related Stories
Lehman debacle: one of greatest crimes ever?
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Christian Science Monitor
Posted: March 28th, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/The-Daily-Reckoning/2010/0315...
After 15 months and 2,200 pages of writing, the Lehman Brothers report has been released. As expected, the details are pretty gruesome. It explains how Repo 105 transactions allowed Lehman to exchange illiquid assets for short-term cash loans in order to disguise the crumbling financial state of the firm in its last days. How bad were the lies? Well, the report shows the transactions were not shown as loans. Instead, they were listed as sales making Lehmans accounting essentially fraudulent. According to emails described in the report, CEO Richard Fuld and about three different CFOs were all likely aware of the cover-up. Yet they still approved and signed off on the quarterly and annual reports. Further, it appears that even Lehmans auditor Ernst & Young in the not-so-fine tradition of Arthur Andersen that was brought down in the Enron scandal knew about the Repo transactions and did nothing to sound an alarm. So much deception and so many accomplices.
Note: To watch a powerfully revealing, 10-minute MSNBC video on this topic, click here. Transcript available here. Host Dyland Ratigan in the clip describes what happened as "an accounting fraud perpetrated by bank CEOs against the American taxpayer."
Related Stories
Latest News
Key News Articles from Years Past
