Anyone have any thoughts on Repo 105?

[Quattrocento]

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1be0aca2-2d79-11df-a262-00144feabdc0.html

Surprised at Linklaters? Thoughts on opinion shopping? Is this E&Y's Enron?

Linkies' opinion was based on English law; and seems to have been entirely legally correct. The fact that Lehman then used it to justify financial manoeuvrings in the US without any knowledge or reference to Linklaters should be of no bearing on them.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have lost a lot of money and Linklaters will undoubted, and justifiably, get sued, probably in the US.

The Report also seemed odd in that it laid greater blame on E&Y for not spotting thsi than on Lehman management for doing it in the first place.

EY did spot it though, but didn't qualify the accounts.

I'm sure that the Linklaters opinion is legally correct but there is a substance over form requirement in UK accounting, and I really don't understand how that was overridden.