Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and its lawyers at Weil Gotshal & Manges have scored a victory in a long-running legal battle with origins that predate the bank’s 2008 collapse: Lehman’s $22 billion leveraged buyout of real estate investment trust Archstone four years ago.
Archstone was acquired by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Tishman Speyer Properties in 2007 in one of the largest REIT buyouts ever. But investors soon began filing suits accusing Archstone of breaching its agreements with them as the Lehman deal was implemented. Now, in one of the first of the Archstone investor cases to be decided, an arbitration panel has knocked out more than $100 million in claims. The Oct. 26 decision became public last week when Archstone moved to confirm the results of the arbitration in Los Angeles Superior Court.
