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The Death of Lehman Brothers
雷曼兄弟之死
A year ago on September 15th Lehman Brothers International (Europe)-LBIE，the London subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings, New York-closed for business, leaving 839,000 failed transactions totalling billions of dollars hanging in the air. Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the administrator, is still trying to sort out most of them, which relate to over 100 separate units of LBIE. It has managed to pay claims of around $13 billion ( ￡8 billion) but wants the American parent to settle up to $ 100 billion more. That may result in litigation, says Tony Lomas, a partner at PWC.
—年前的9月15日，雷曼兄弟國際公司（歐洲部）——簡稱LBIE，即紐約雷曼兄弟控股公司設(shè)在倫敦的分部，宣布倒閉。留下共83.9萬宗交易額達(dá)數(shù)百億美元的未處理交易。普華永道作為雷曼的破產(chǎn)管理人，仍嘗試著從中挑選出多數(shù)與100多家LBIE單獨(dú)的部門有關(guān)的交易。LBIE已支付了約130億美元（約80億英鎊）的賠償金，但期望美國的總公司能還清剩下的1000多億美元債務(wù)。普華永道的合伙人托尼·洛馬斯表示，這可能會引起訴訟。
In the global Lehman debacle, the British authorities and claimants on the London entity drew the short straw. Lehman Brothers Inc, the broker-dealer in New York, was a relatively simple company. It siphoned billions from the global group days before it went bust. The American authorities then gave it until September 19th to settle its trades. Many of its clients' assets were insured. Barclays, a British bank, bought the business and took over its customer positions, ensuring continuity.
在這場雷曼倒閉而引發(fā)的全球性危機(jī)中，英國當(dāng)局及倫敦股市的索賠者抽中了下下簽。位于紐約的經(jīng)紀(jì)交易所一雷曼兄弟公司曾是一家業(yè)務(wù)相對單一的公司。在雷曼倒閉前，該交易所從全球各大集團(tuán)吸取了數(shù)百億美元資金。美國當(dāng)局于是要求雷曼在9月19號前結(jié)算所有的交易。所幸大部分客戶的資產(chǎn)已投保。英國巴萊克銀行收購了該公司，并接管了其客戶，保證了該公司的繼續(xù)運(yùn)營。
LBIE, a complex investment bank, offered no such comfort. Its trades included huge off-exchange dealings in securities and derivatives. Many of its clients' assets had been lent or pledged to third parties by the bank itself, in some cases without clients，knowledge and perhaps without their permission: sloppy records leave plenty of room for doubt. Administrators have had to fight for access to information from Lehman New York, and from securities depositories worldwide.
而LBIE這家復(fù)雜的投資銀行卻不太能讓人放心。其業(yè)務(wù)每括大量證券和衍生性金融產(chǎn)品的場外交易。客戶的大部分資產(chǎn)被銀行自行放貸或抵押給了第三方。在一些情況下，銀行是在不了解客戶，甚至可能沒有征得客戶同意的前提下作出上述行為的。許多混亂的記錄足以讓人心生懷疑。對此，破產(chǎn)管理人不得不竭力從紐約雷曼或世界其他各地的證券存管處獲得信息。
Clearing this up will take years. It may seem merely technical, but the mess says much about the problems of being a global financial centre, where foreign teams come to play and the home referee deals with the damage. The Financial Services Authority, unable to control the liquidity of this operator on its turf, proposed in March that host countries be given more power to demand extra capital and restrict intra-group flows. That might also reduce the chances of another retail fiasco like that of the Icelandic banks, whose failure in 2008 left an online offshoot owing British depositors ￡2.3 billion. On August 28th Iceland agreed to repay them, helped by an IMF loan.
收拾殘局可能要花上好幾年時間。這看起來似乎純粹是技術(shù)活，但這狼藉的局面暴露出這家全球金融中心的許多問題，就好像國外的球隊來亂踢了一通，結(jié)果把爛攤子留給本國的裁判去處理。金融服務(wù)管理局無法控制自己地盤上運(yùn)營中心資金的流動性，于是他們在3月份提出建議，希望賦予東道主更多的權(quán)力，以獲得額外的資本額，并限制集團(tuán)內(nèi)部的資金流動。這也可能降低零售銀行再次像冰島銀行那樣慘敗的風(fēng)險。冰島銀行2008的破產(chǎn)讓在線分支機(jī)構(gòu)欠了英國儲戶23億英鎊。8月28日，在國際貨幣基金貸款的幫助下，冰島同意償還這些債務(wù)。
In May Britain's Treasury produced a consultation paper on better resolution of such situations. The proposals range from a special insolvency regime for investment banks (there is none now) to tightening up the clearing and settling of trades, and the handling of clients，assets. Banks，lawyers and accountants want fixes to be minimal and market-driven. Most believe that the Special Resolution Regime for retail banks, included in a new Banking Act this year, should be extended to investment banks.
5月，英國財政部發(fā)布一份關(guān)于如何更好地解決這些困境的咨詢文件。文件上的提議涵蓋許多方面，從為投資銀行制定的特別償債制度（目前還沒有任何償債制度）到加強(qiáng)交易的清算以及結(jié)算流程，同時還涉及對客戶資產(chǎn)的處理。銀行、律師以及會計師希望修補(bǔ)措施盡可能少，并受市場驅(qū)動。今年出臺的新銀行業(yè)法案為零售銀行制定了一份特別決議制度。大多數(shù)人認(rèn)為，該份制度應(yīng)該也對投資銀行推廣。
Uncertainty about clients' assets is the burning issue, though Deborah Sabalot, a regulation lawyer, insists that clients themselves should push for more clarity on how these are segregated and protected. Regulators are likely to get no further than they did after the collapse of Barings, a British bank, in 1995. The so-called Windsor Declaration that year resolved to develop "best practices" for handling customer accounts. If implemented, they might have prevented much of the aggravation felt 14 years later in the Lehman workout.
對客戶資產(chǎn)的不確定性是目前亟待解決的問題，盡管監(jiān)管律師德波拉·撒巴羅認(rèn)為，顧客應(yīng)該自行要求對銀行如何分管及保護(hù)他們的資產(chǎn)有更明確的說法。1995年，英國巴林銀行倒閉后，監(jiān)管者可能已經(jīng)逡巡不前。同年發(fā)布的所謂《溫莎聲明》制定了解決問題的“最佳方案”來處理客人的賬目。假如這些方案得以實(shí)施，可能已經(jīng)很大程度上減少了14年以后雷曼倒閉的破壞程度。
