SIPC: CLAIMS FORMS MAILED TO LEHMAN BROTHERS INC. CUSTOMERS AND CREDITORS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – December 2, 2008 – The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which maintains a special reserve fund authorized by Congress to help investors at failed brokerage firms, said that an estimated 925,000 claims forms have been mailed today to customers and creditors of Lehman Brothers Inc. (LBI).
The claims forms and related documents are also available online at http://www.lehmantrustee.com and on the SIPC Web site at http://www.sipc.org/cases/sipccasesopen.cfm.
In making the announcement, SIPC stressed that all claims must be filed with the court-appointed trustee, James W. Giddens, who is overseeing the LBI liquidation process.
Through the coordinated efforts of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the trustee and his staff, former Lehman Brothers Inc. personnel, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Depository Trust Clearing Corporation, over 135,000 former LBI customer accounts already have been transferred either to Neuberger Berman (through its clearing firm, Broadridge) or to Barclays Capital.
This transfer of customer accounts in a liquidation proceeding of unprecedented size has been handled in record time, according to SIPC. The procedures being followed in the account transfer process and liquidation of LBI reflect the safeguards provided by the securities laws and the Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA) in protecting customer assets.
The Bankruptcy Court proceeding for LBI is being conducted under the auspices of United States Bankruptcy Judge James M. Peck.
About SIPC
The Securities Investor Protection Corporation is the U.S. investor's first line of defense in the event a brokerage firm fails, owing customer cash and securities that are missing from customer accounts. SIPC either acts as trustee or works with an independent court-appointed trustee in a brokerage insolvency case to recover funds.
The statute that created SIPC provides that customers of a failed brokerage firm receive all non-negotiable securities - such as stocks or bonds -- that are already registered in their names or in the process of being registered. At the same time, funds from the SIPC reserve are available to satisfy the remaining claims of each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. This figure includes a maximum of $100,000 on claims for cash.
From the time Congress created it in 1970 through December 2006, SIPC has advanced $505 million in order to make possible the recovery of $15.7 billion in assets for an estimated 626,000 investors.
For more information about SIPC, see "The Investor's Guide to Brokerage Firm Liquidations" at http://www.sipc.org/pdf/SIPC_brochure_Investors_Guide_To_BD_Liquidations.pdf.
MEDIA CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, for SIPC, (703) 276-3265, or aaaron@hastingsgroup.com. All investor inquiries of SIPC should be directed to asksipc@sipc.org or (202) 371-8300.
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