The Wall Street Journal ($) is reporting today that brokerage house Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is close to a $220 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that it and other big brokerage firms participated in a scheme with Enron Corp. executives to mislead shareholders. Lehman’s propoed settlement follows a similar settlement in July in which Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay $69 million to settle similar allegations.
Bank of America and Lehman were underwriters in just a handful of Enron-related deals, so attorneys involved in the case believe their roles (and thus their settlement payments) are small in comparison to firms like Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. who did more Enron-related deals. Citigroup and J.P. Morgan are among the firms that have reserved billions of dollars to cover Enron-related exposure.