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M. Continuo

U.S. to be allowed to probe Lehman UK auditors: report


    (Reuters) - The United States and UK have settled a jurisdictional dispute that will allow U.S. inspectors to examine whether the British auditors of Lehman Brothers Holdings improperly cleared questionable accounting, Bloomberg said on Monday.

    The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) will get access to the books under an agreement set to be announced on Monday, the news agency said citing a person familiar with the agreement and certain documents.

    PCAOB was not available for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

    The U.S. authorities have been prevented from reviewing British auditors of Lehman since 2008 due to the jurisdictional dispute, Bloomberg said.

    Accounting firm Ernst & Young is facing a fraud lawsuit in the U.S. over its audits of Lehman Brothers before the bank collapsed.

    The PCAOB was created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to police public auditors in the wake of accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom. The board registers, inspects and disciplines auditors for public companies and broker-dealers.

    (Reporting by Santosh Nadgir in Bangalore; Editing by Greg Mahlich)