Lehman Brothers' whistle blower was ousted: report

Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:13am EDT

(Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc ousted whistle blower Matthew Lee just weeks after he had raised concerns with Lehman's auditor about the firm's accounting in 2008, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Lee, a former senior vice president, Finance Division, in charge of global balance sheet and legal entity accounting, was let go in late June 2008 amid steep losses at the firm as it tried to wade through the global financial crisis, the paper said.

Lehman said at the time it let go Lee as part of a broader downsizing at the firm, the people told the paper.

Lehman filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, listing more than $600 billion of assets, a portion of which were sold off to Britain's Barclays Plc.

In 2008, Lee had raised concerns with Lehman's auditor Ernst & Young about the firm's accounting practices. On June 12 that year Lee informed Ernst & Young about Lehman's use of $50 billion of Repo 105 transactions in the second quarter of 2008, the paper said.

On March 11, an examiner said Lehman used accounting gimmicks and had been insolvent for weeks before it filed for bankruptcy in September 2008.

Erwin Shustak, a lawyer for Matthew Lee, could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by David Holmes)
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Comments (7)
TheMarketTruth wrote:
Many people are whistle blowing about the massive fraud at the Federal Reserve, when will Bernanke and the entire board members be fired? Better still, dissolve/fire the private member owned Federal Reserve and GO BACK to a Constitutional banking system lead by the USA government.

Mar 16, 2010 6:01am EDT  --  Report as abuse
jjsedona wrote:
Corporate mentality! What happened to, do what is right? Shame on all corporations that put the almighty dollar before ntegrity, morality, ethics.

Mar 16, 2010 8:23am EDT  --  Report as abuse
BrianPomeroy wrote:
Remove all heads above Lee, no exceptions. And Google needs to break up with China and we need to say goodbye to them forever. Remove Madoff’s head in front of camera’s to show we do not care THAT much about money. When Obama goes after Mexican dope, encourage him to gather the money and leave the smoke for the poor. People caught with cocaine should be granted their right to die after they have proven they want to die.

Mar 16, 2010 9:50am EDT  --  Report as abuse
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