It’s been two years since Lehman Brothers holdings Inc. filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and the subject still provokes passionate debate. Was the crash of 2008 inevitable? What if the government had bailed out Lehman the way it did other companies before and after it let the investment bank go? And, most recently, would the Dodd-Frank financial reform law have prevented the excesses that led to Lehman’s demise?
The controversy shows no sign of abating. The books and articles continue apace as writers digest new information in the Lehman affair provided by, among other sources, the ongoing trial in a Manhattan federal bankruptcy court in which the Lehman estate accuses Barclays Capital Inc. of improperly siphoning more than $10 billion when it bought the investment bank’s broker-dealer business; the congressional testimony last spring that featured former Lehman executives and regulators; and the mother lode—the bankruptcy examiner’s 2,200-page report that spells out what happened and why.
