Lehman Investigator Spills the Beans on Bankruptcy

Anton Valukas, 66, was the chief investigator who scrutinized the now infamous Lehman Brothers Holdingsí $639 billion bankruptcy, the biggest financial failure in the history of the United States.  Spending a year and $38 million, he produced a meticulous 2,200 page report that goes in depth into revealing some amazing details such as whether JPMorgan Chase and Co. triggered Lehmanís bankruptcy, had Barclays PLC benefited from it or not and the role played by the US Federal Reserve in all this.

The New York bankruptcy court papers show that Valukasí report came as a result of interviewing more than 100 people, going through more than 10 million documents in addition to some 20 million pages of emails from Lehman.  It is not uncommon for investigators to encounter difficulty in persuading witnesses to come out into the open.  Many prefer to remain anonymous and keep their testimonies confidential.

But Valukas successfully negotiated with witnesses to do away with their right to confidentiality.  As such, he stated in a letter to Judge James Peck only 5 documents out of 3,158 documents referred to in his report are meant to be kept confidential.  These 5 documents only relate to a few pages of the report, which were redacted from the final version handed over to the judge.  It was Barclays PLC, the US Office of Thrift Supervision and CME Group, a futures and options exchange that requested the redactions.  The rest of the documents could be disclosed.

Valukas also rightfully denied Lehman access to his documents and witnesses while carrying on his investigations.