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Lehman Sept 4
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Lehman Trustee: Ex-Employees Don't Warrant Special Status
Sep 3, 2015 | Dow Jones - Daily Bankruptcy Review
By Patrick Fitzgerald
The trustee winding down Lehman Brothers Holding's brokerage says hundreds of former employees still waiting to recover more than $250 million in deferred compensation don't deserve to jump in front of other unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy-payout line. -
Lehman Trustee Takes Aim At $260M Compensation Claims
Sep 3, 2015 | Law360
By Jonathan Randles
ehman Brothers Inc.'s liquidating trustee asked a New York bankruptcy court Wednesday to reclassify $260 million worth of claims brought under a deferred compensation plan for executives and other employees of the failed brokerage business. Attorneys for James Giddens, LBI's liquidating trustee...
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Employee Compensation
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Lehman Trustee: Ex-Employees Don't Warrant Special Status
Sep 3, 2015 | Dow Jones - Daily Bankruptcy Review
By Patrick Fitzgerald
The trustee winding down Lehman Brothers Holding's brokerage says hundreds of former employees still waiting to recover more than $250 million in deferred compensation don't deserve to jump in front of other unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy-payout line.
Lawyers for James W. Giddens, the trustee in charge of unwinding Lehman's brokerage, want to reclassify the employees' secured claims, which receive priority under bankruptcy law's payment scheme, to general unsecured status....
Subscription needed for full story: http://bankruptcynews.dowjones.com/Article?an=DJFDBR0120150903eb93l5f4g&cid=32135012&ctype=ts&pid=310&ReturnUrl=http%3a%2f%2fbankruptcynews.dowjones.com%2fArticle%3fan%3dDJFDBR0120150903eb93l5f4g%26cid%3d32135012%26ctype%3dts%26pid%3d310
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Lehman Trustee Takes Aim At $260M Compensation Claims
Sep 3, 2015 | Law360
By Jonathan Randles
Lehman Brothers Inc.'s liquidating trustee asked a New York bankruptcy court Wednesday to reclassify $260 million worth of claims brought under a deferred compensation plan for executives and other employees of the failed brokerage business.
Attorneys for James Giddens, LBI's liquidating trustee, filed a motion arguing that the employees' claims should be denied priority status and reclassified from secured to unsecured general creditor claims. Giddens said the change would allow him to release money that has been set aside to cover the claims and continue LBI's wind-down.
There are currently 566 unresolved general creditor claims that are subject to either pending objections or settlements, Wednesday's motion said. Of those, approximately 380 claims are for deferred compensation under an LBI Select Employees Deferred Compensation Plan, or ESEP, according to the trustee.
The ESEP “is one of several unfunded deferred compensation plans offered to a limited group of executives and other highly compensated employees at LBI,” Giddens said. The plan became effective in 1985, and participants made voluntary compensation deferrals into the plan through 1988.
The question of whether the ESEP claims should be subordinated as it relates to the terms of the employment agreement is already being litigated in a separate adversary proceeding, Giddens said. The motion filed Wednesday concerns whether deferred compensation claims in general should be given priority status, he said.
To assert a secured claim, the U.S. Bankruptcy Code requires a creditor to “demonstrate that its claim is secured by a lien on property in which the debtor's estate has an interest,” the trustee's motion said. A creditor's claims must be classified as unsecured if it is unable to show that its claims are secured by a lien, the motion said.
Giddens said the LBI employees have provided no evidence showing that their claims are secured.
“Based on analysis by the trustee’s counsel of each of the claims and their supporting documents, including the ESEP agreements, the trustee has determined that the claims that assert secured status should be reclassified from secured to general unsecured claims because the claimants do not possess a lien on any property in which the debtor has an interest, and therefore are not entitled to secured status under Bankruptcy Code Section 506(a),” the motion said.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for November...For full story: http://www.law360.com/articles/698792/lehman-trustee-takes-aim-at-260m-compensation-claims
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Employee Compensation
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