Nice try, Schneiderman.
The New York attorney general has no authority to claim $150 million in fees that Ernst & Young earned from Lehman Brothers Holdings in the years leading up to Lehman's collapse in 2008, a judge ruled on Wednesday. The state had sought the fees as part of a lawsuit against Ernst & Young over its auditing of Lehman Brothers. The lawsuit accuses the firm of assisting Lehman in accounting fraud. New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Oing said the fees could not be recovered by the state because they were not paid by consumers or the state. "The allegations in this complaint fail to set forth sufficiently as to exactly what the public's injury is," Oing said.
E&Y is "pleased" with the ruling, not that they were ever worried about the outcome.
[Reuters]
