Finally, some good news for a change: Dick Fuld is getting $10 million!
No, the guy who raked in nearly half a billion over 15 years while running Lehman Brothers into the ground didn’t win the lottery.
Instead, he will get the money from Lehman’s insurers to settle a suit filed by the Booth Foundation, a Florida charity that sank $22 million into Lehman debt in 2006. It hasn’t received a payment on the note since Lehman collapsed two years ago in the biggest-ever U.S. bankruptcy.
Booth contended Fuld should be held responsible for those losses due to Lehman’s alleged failure to keep investors apprised of risks tied to its ever-increasing bubble-era appetite for mortgage-related debt. As the CEO Fuld had a duty to oversee the brokers who sold Booth the note, the suit contended.
Bloomberg, citing bankruptcy court filings, reports that the money being paid to Fuld by Lehman’s insurers amounts to just a fraction of the $250 million in insurance coverage Lehman bought for its officers and directors in 2007 and 2008.
The full terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed. Lawyers for Fuld and Booth didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
The settlement is the latest twist for Fuld, who has emerged as one of the villains of the financial crisis. He has appeared a few times in public since Lehman’s demise but without appearing the least bit chastened, prompting one wag to say “it’s like he’s the Queen of England or something.”
