Got A Signing Bonus From Lehman Brothers? Yeah We're Gonna Need That Back

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Were you a member of an elite group of individuals taken before their time known as the Lehman Brothers associate class of 2008? Were you robbed of the chance to toil under the Gorilla for more than a few weeks because oops the firm went out of business? (And speaking of that: do you blame yourself? Dick Fuld certainly does.) Those $40k signing bonuses you got and probably already spent are going to need to be paid back, ASAP.

The requests are allegedly coming from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is administering Lehman's estate in the UK. "More than 60% of my class received this letter around two weeks ago," says one former Lehman associate. "We're seeking legal opinions on whether we have to pay it back."

Elaine Aarons, a partners who acts for senior executives at law firm Withers, says PWC might be able to extract the money from the unfortunate associates if the contracts were worded so that the loans were repayable if they simply weren't in employment with Lehman 12 months on.
"Whilst it may seem unreasonable on a common sense basis to have to repay something that you've probably already spent when you have done nothing wrong, it's not impossible that on a strict reading of the contract events have triggered the conditions in which a repayment would occur."


Former Lehman associates allegedly being asked to repay $40k [eFC via BI]

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Joe Gregory has been forced to put his Long Island-chic manse on the market. Dick Fuld's been pounding the pavement for months with nothing to show for it.  Bella is still dead. Not a lot to celebrate and yet some people have managed to do pretty okay for themselves despite having spent time at 745 7th Avenue. Erin Callan, as may have heard, is happily married to firefighter Anthony Montella and living in a $3.9 million house in the Hamptons and Evelyn Stevens, who actually worked at another firm before leaving Wall Street but should know that if you so much as set foot in the lobby of the building, you'll be branded a Lehman Brother or Sister for life, just competed in her first Olympics and no longer counts herself among financial services employees who spend their days fantasizing about a life that doesn't so closely resemble hell. The 5-foot-5 (1.7-meter) Stevens said she’s using savings from banking bonuses to “cushion” the blow of lower earnings. She began her career as an investment-banking analyst at Lehman Brothers Inc., leaving in 2007 before the bank collapsed. “I was able to save a lot of my bonuses,” Stevens said. “I don’t have to survive on a $10,000 or $8,000 purse from cycling. If I hadn’t been in investment banking, I wouldn’t have been able to be at the Olympics.” She was 24th in yesterday’s Olympic women’s road race, finishing among a group including teammate Shelley Olds that was 27 seconds behind gold-medal winner Marianne Voss of the Netherlands. There were 66 riders at the start. While there’s a “big discrepancy” from what she once earned, Stevens said her quality of life has improved. After leaving behind a 90-hour working week in banking, she lives in Girona, Spain during the European racing season and Boulder, Colorado. “In New York there’s pressure, and it’s kind of negative, everyone was stressed,” Stevens, dressed in U.S. team tracksuit and lycra three-quarter length pants at the London Olympic Park, said July 27. “I don’t get so much money now but my quality of living has gone up.” Ex-Lehman Banker Parlays Bonuses Into Cycling Berth At Olympics [Bloomberg]