Lehman to repay Europe clients faster

LONDON (Reuters) - European clients of collapsed U.S. bank Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ.PK) could early next year get billions of dollars of funds that have been tied up in legal proceedings, under a plan aimed at speeding up the claim process.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which is in charge of the collapsed bank's main European operations, said on Wednesday it had applied for the High Court in England and Wales to approve a scheme of arrangement to "significantly expedite" the return of assets, and avoid an unpredictable and onerous process.

Lehman's collapse last September trapped the assets of thousands of its clients around the world. Administrators have since been assessing the claims of creditors.

If the High Court and Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (LBIE) creditors approve the scheme if will be effective by the end of October and the return of assets should start in the first quarter of 2010, PwC said in a statement.

LBIE held about $23 billion (14 billion pounds) in client assets at September 15 2008. Since then it has returned some assets to individual creditors, but PwC said this had been a lengthy process.

The scheme would classify more than 1,000 clients into three classes and allow the administrators to deal with blocks of claims, rather than individually.

Creditors still owed money will have until the end of 2009 to submit their claims.

(Reporting by Steve Slater in London and Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Valerie Lee)