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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，雷曼兄弟国际公司（欧洲部）——简称LBIE，即纽约雷曼兄弟控股公司设在伦敦的分部，宣布倒闭。留下共83.9万宗交易额达数百亿美元的未处理交易。普华永道作为雷曼的破产管理人，仍尝试着从中挑选出多数与100多家LBIE单独的部门有关的交易。LBIE已支付了约130亿美元（约80亿英镑）的赔偿金，但期望美国的总公司能还清剩下的1000多亿美元债务。普华永道的合伙人托尼·洛马斯表示，这可能会引起诉讼。
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.
在这场雷曼倒闭而引发的全球性危机中，英国当局及伦敦股市的索赔者抽中了下下签。位于纽约的经纪交易所一雷曼兄弟公司曾是一家业务相对单一的公司。在雷曼倒闭前，该交易所从全球各大集团吸取了数百亿美元资金。美国当局于是要求雷曼在9月19号前结算所有的交易。所幸大部分客户的资产已投保。英国巴莱克银行收购了该公司，并接管了其客户，保证了该公司的继续运营。
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这家复杂的投资银行却不太能让人放心。其业务每括大量证券和衍生性金融产品的场外交易。客户的大部分资产被银行自行放贷或抵押给了第三方。在一些情况下，银行是在不了解客户，甚至可能没有征得客户同意的前提下作出上述行为的。许多混乱的记录足以让人心生怀疑。对此，破产管理人不得不竭力从纽约雷曼或世界其他各地的证券存管处获得信息。
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.
收拾残局可能要花上好几年时间。这看起来似乎纯粹是技术活，但这狼藉的局面暴露出这家全球金融中心的许多问题，就好像国外的球队来乱踢了一通，结果把烂摊子留给本国的裁判去处理。金融服务管理局无法控制自己地盘上运营中心资金的流动性，于是他们在3月份提出建议，希望赋予东道主更多的权力，以获得额外的资本额，并限制集团内部的资金流动。这也可能降低零售银行再次像冰岛银行那样惨败的风险。冰岛银行2008的破产让在线分支机构欠了英国储户23亿英镑。8月28日，在国际货币基金贷款的帮助下，冰岛同意偿还这些债务。
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，英国财政部发布一份关于如何更好地解决这些困境的咨询文件。文件上的提议涵盖许多方面，从为投资银行制定的特别偿债制度（目前还没有任何偿债制度）到加强交易的清算以及结算流程，同时还涉及对客户资产的处理。银行、律师以及会计师希望修补措施尽可能少，并受市场驱动。今年出台的新银行业法案为零售银行制定了一份特别决议制度。大多数人认为，该份制度应该也对投资银行推广。
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.
对客户资产的不确定性是目前亟待解决的问题，尽管监管律师德波拉·撒巴罗认为，顾客应该自行要求对银行如何分管及保护他们的资产有更明确的说法。1995年，英国巴林银行倒闭后，监管者可能已经逡巡不前。同年发布的所谓《温莎声明》制定了解决问题的“最佳方案”来处理客人的账目。假如这些方案得以实施，可能已经很大程度上减少了14年以后雷曼倒闭的破坏程度。
