7 million financial transactions representing billions of dollars

And if Christine Lagarde was right Passed relatively unnoticed, a recent expert report presented before the bipartisan parliamentary Committee on the crisis financial (FCIC), beginning of September, in any case seems to give reason to the Minister of economy, - one of the first to be considered as a "mistake" the fact of having "dropped" the American Bank - by throwing an edifying light conditions precipitated by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.

According to the report submitted by the counsel of Lehman, Harvey Miller, partner of law firm Weil Gotshal Manges & and specialist recognized Columbia University bankruptcy plan, a gradual closure of Lehman with "guarantees limited of the State" could cost between 40 and 50 billion dollars, against an invoice of $ 700 billion of value left in smoke during the first week.

"The failure of the Government seems to have been the result of a serious error of calculation on potential systemic risks that were prescribed Lehman bankruptcy and its fall", Harvey Miller found in his testimony written before the Commission. For him, the former Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, thought, wrongly, that financial markets had already anticipated and taken into account the bankruptcy of the Bank. Instead, "the fall of Lehman precipitated a crisis which almost resulted in the destruction of the financial system in shocking financial markets and the public investors and by disrupting thousands of financial transactions on a global basis". In that connection, he recalled that Lehman, with 26,000 employees and subsidiaries 8,000, was party to more than 10,000 linked derivatives contracts to about 1.7 million financial transactions representing billions of dollars.

A still lengthy procedure

"The damage brought about by the Lehman aillite f could be substantially reduced by innovative actions of the Government." "Conversely, the Government has made a calculation error and pushed the financial system at the precipice," concludes the author of the report, telling in detail how the New York Fed imposed in twenty-four hours, the solution of the bankruptcy, on the instruction of the Treasury and possible discussion.

Of course, the point of view of Harvey Miller is not really impartial since it is the senior counsel of Lehman in the bankruptcy proceedings, as well as in that of General Motors. But its past of recognized expert in the law of bankruptcy since 1975 gives it an indisputable expert status. In his report to the FCIC, Harvey Miller also provides a detailed estimate of the legal costs associated with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. All in whereas the risk procedure still last at least two years, nearly 300 billion requests will be approved, but not necessarily honored, on a total of 873 billion in applications. "The compensation process is underway, but will be extremely difficult given the nature of many particularly complex transactions," he said.

In the end, at the time of the second anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, believes the estimated cost of management of bankruptcy to $ 2 billion (including fees paid to lawyers and accountants). A drop of water to the magnitude of the disaster and still less than the precedents of WorldCom and Enron (approximately 1 to 2 of the assets at the time).