UPDATE 1-Ernst & Young new defendant in Lehman suit-report

* Class-action lawsuit

* Ernst added as defendant after examiner's report (Recasts paragraphs 2, 4; Adds Ernst & Young comment, paragraphs 5-6)

NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - Ernst & Young LLP, the auditor for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc LEHMQ.PK, was added as a defendant to an investor lawsuit seeking to recover money from former Lehman executives and underwriters, Bloomberg News said, citing a court document filed on Friday.

According to the article, the class-action lawsuit seeks to hold defendants responsible for failing to disclose Repo 105 transactions, making false statements about liquidity and overstating real estate values.

The new claims reflect findings from a report filed last month by Lehman bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas, it said.

The court document was not immediately available online.

"Throughout our period as the auditor of Lehman, we firmly believe our work met all applicable professional standards, applying the rules that existed at the time," Ernst & Young spokesman Charlie Perkins said in an e-mail.

"As the bankruptcy examiner has acknowledged, Lehman's bankruptcy was caused by a collapse in its liquidity, which in turn was caused by declining asset values and loss of market confidence in Lehman," he added. "It was not caused by any accounting issues.

A lawyer for a group of pension funds that are leading the lawsuit also did not immediately return a call.

The lawsuit was originally filed in June 2008. It then alleged that Lehman was too slow to write down mortgage-related and other risky debt, and thus overstated its financial health and inflated its stock price. Former Lehman Chief Executive Richard Fuld was among the named defendants.

Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. The bankruptcy remains by far the largest in U.S. history.

The case is In re Lehman Brothers Equity/Debt Securities Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-05523. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Carol Bishopric and Lincoln Feast)