Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. dodged, for now, a bankruptcy court ruling that could have effectively barred the defunct investment bank from making further distributions to creditors, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The estimated value of more than 209,000 residential mortgage-backed securities claims should remain capped at $5 billion, instead of being raised to $12.1 billion as requested by a group of trustees, Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman ruled yesterday. There’s “pretty clear case law on this point,” she said. The ruling doesn’t resolve the issue as Judge Chapman will continue to hear arguments and expert testimony over the trustee group’s bid to value the loans using statistical sampling instead of one-by-one, as Lehman advocates. The trustees argue Lehman’s method will cost $110 million and take 41 years to complete. The streamlined process can be done in a year, they argue.
