BarCap chief to testify at Lehman windfall trial

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NEW YORK, June 16 | Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:24pm BST

NEW YORK, June 16 (Reuters) - Barclays (BARC.L) President Bob Diamond will take the stand on Monday to face questions from Lehman creditors on whether the British investment firm engineered a so-called windfall profit from its takeover of the U.S. brokerage arm of Lehman Brothers [LEHMQ.PK].

Diamond will appear in the afternoon on June 21, said Jonathan Schiller, an attorney at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP who is representing Barclays. Brian Marsal, who is overseeing the liquidation of Lehman Brothers' U.S. assets, will appear in the morning of the same day, said Schiller.

At issue is whether Barclays received an improper $11.2 billion windfall from its takeover of Lehman assets. The former investment firm is seeking to have the judge, who approved the transaction 20 months ago, review the sale.

At the same time, The Office of the Trustee for the Liquidation of Lehman Brothers Inc, the broker/dealer of Lehman Brothers, is seeking to recover some $6.7 billion of assets it says Barclays is to trying to take at the expense of public customers.

Barclays, meanwhile, claims Lehman has failed to deliver about $3 billion in assets that Barclays purchased under the court-approved sale agreement. Britain's second-biggest bank has said Lehman's assets were inflated when the deal was struck, and it marked them to their true value.

Diamond's testimony had been scheduled for May, but was delayed when other witness depositions took longer than expected.

Lehman filed the largest bankruptcy in history on Sept. 15, 2008, and less than a week later sold its flagship U.S. brokerage business to Barclays for about $1.85 billion.

The case is In re: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-13555. (Reporting by Chelsea Emery, editing by Matthew Lewis)

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