Bankruptcy Judge James Peck on Tuesday approved a set of settlements among Lehman Brothers entities that will allow the company's defunct brokerage to pay back about $15 billion in customer claims, Reuters reported yesterday. The intercompany claims had been the final obstacles keeping James Giddens, the trustee recovering money for the broker's customers, from making full payouts to brokerage customers. While individual retail customers were made whole shortly after Lehman's collapse in 2008, hundreds of affiliate, institutional and hedge fund customers of the brokerage have been waiting for their money. The deals resolve a pair of disputes, one between Lehman's brokerage and its parent entity, the other between the brokerage and the company's European arm. The parent will receive a $2.3 billion customer claim, down from the $19.9 billion it had originally sought, and a $14 billion lower-priority unsecured claim against the brokerage.
