Lehman seeks to contact European operations

Los Angeles: Bankrupt Lehman Brothers has filed court papers seeking approval to communicate with its European operations for help unwinding billions of dollars in assets that "sit unmanaged".

The proposed agreement would be struck among Lehman's US and European facilities, its bank-ruptcy administrators, and its asset management business, Neuberger Berman Holdings.

In court documents, Shai Waisman, a Weil Gotshal & Manges attorney representing Lehman said "the flow of critical information has ceased" between Lehman's New York and London facilities following separate bankruptcy filings.

Lehman says it has been severed from Europe-based assets, employees and information systems that "remain critical to [Lehman's] operations and efforts to maximise the value of their estates".

Lehman has a "large book of business in the United Kingdom, consisting of more than one million trading positions and billions of dollars in receivables to the estates," the documents said.