Winding up Lehman Europe
While much has been made about the difficulty of winding up large and complex financial institutions, it appears that it is the simplest of structures that are the hardest to wind up. Giving some of one’s things to another for temporary safe keeping on “trust” is probably older than lending money (debt markets) or selling equity interests in assets (stock markets) – it is probably older than money itself. Yet it is the simple trust structure that is proving so difficult with Lehman Brothers International Europe (LBIE) in London.
The UK High Court has ruled that the normal scheme of arrangements in bankruptcy do not apply to trust property:
51. On analysis Part 26 is concerned with the general estate of a company. It cannot override ordinary trust principles. In the case of creditors, whether actual, prospective or contingent, it deals with persons who have claims which they can bring against the pool of assets which comprises the general estate of the company. A creditor’s claim ranks pari passu with other creditors’ claims against that general estate. It is perfectly comprehensible, therefore, that Part 26 should provide that if those creditors wish to rearrange or compromise their rights against the company, they should be able to do so, by the requisite majorities, because, at the end of the day, they all look to the company’s assets for satisfaction of their pecuniary rights.
52. By contrast with that is the person who has placed his assets with a trustee. There the position is totally different: the essential feature of so doing is that the owner knows that he can have his property, which remains his throughout, dealt with by the trustee in accordance with the terms of the trust. The property is not vulnerable to interference merely because the trustee becomes insolvent: the trust remains. The fact that the trustee is a corporate trustee is likewise immaterial to the integrity of the trust; no less immaterial is that the trustee happens to be a company liable to be wound up under the Insolvency Act 1986 (or the equivalent provision in Northern Ireland), these being the types of company to which the court’s jurisdiction under Part 26 applies where a compromise or arrangement is proposed between a company and its creditors or any class of them: see section 895(2)(b).
53. The fact that the proposed scheme is confined to persons who have a pecuniary claim, however prospective or contingent that claim may be (for example a claim for damages or compensation for the delay in returning that person’s property), does not assist the administrators. While the existence of that claim may provide the basis for a scheme of arrangement directed to that and other pecuniary claims against LBIE, it does not justify interference with the underlying property rights of the property owner. Aside from the fact that the property owner’s remedy (as beneficiary under the trust) for breach of trust is principally directed to securing performance of the trust, rather than to the recovery of compensation or damages, the existence of the pecuniary claims does not affect, and is certainly not the origin of, the owner’s property rights. To suggest otherwise and to ground the intention of the scheme to interfere with the owner’s property rights merely because that owner also has a pecuniary claim against LBIE in view of the possibility that LBIE has acted (or may yet act) in breach of trust is to invert the position. Indeed, the scheme, if it is allowed to proceed, risks turning the position of the beneficial owner on its head: this is because under a trust it is for the trustee to justify and account for his dealings with the trust estate whereas under the scheme the onus will be on the owner to come forward, as a dissentient, to explain and justify why that owner’s property rights should not be dealt with and varied under the scheme.
What I found most amusing was the idea that when a hedge fund gives collateral to a prime broker with unlimited right to rehypothecate, “the owner knows that he can have his property, which remains his throughout.” But then I am not a lawyer.
The court of course thinks that the absence of a scheme of arrangement does not matter. The court has enough powers to sort things out. By that argument, one does not need a scheme of arrangement for creditors either – the courts can sort that out too.
77. Establishing what client assets of any given client LBIE holds or controls, what competing claims there may be to those assets by other clients or by LBIE (or others) and how LBIE and the administrators are to discharge their duties in respect of those assets with a view to their due distribution to those entitled to them are all matters where the court has, in the exercise of its trust jurisdiction, well-developed processes to assist the accountable trustee or other fiduciary. For example, the court is well used to authorising a trustee to make distribution of a fund where there can be no certainty that all of the claimants to it have been identified and the trustee desires the protection of a court order in the event that a further claimant should subsequently appear or matters subsequently come to light which question the basis on which the distribution is made. In one sense, dealing with the matter by recourse to the court’s assistance in this way can be simpler (and less costly) than the often complex processes involved in the promotion of a scheme under Part 26.
78. At the risk of appearing glib, I do not consider that a structured approach of this broad kind is beyond practical achievement in the exceptionally difficult circumstances of LBIE’s administration.
In short, it appears that the legal system in the foremost financial centre in the world does not have a practical way of dealing with the simplest and oldest financial contract – property held under trust.
Posted at 2:48 pm IST on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 permanent link
Categories: bankruptcy, crisis
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