Report criticises Lehman Brothers

A court-appointed investigator says the American investment bank, Lehman Brothers, used "accounting gimmicks", and had been insolvent for weeks before it filed for bankruptcy in September 2008.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers was the biggest bankruptcy in US history and sparked the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. This report, which runs to two thousand, two hundred pages, has found that the leadership of Lehmans, including the Chief Executive, Dick Fuld, deliberately used financial trickery going back to 2001, to make the bank appear healthier than it really was.

In 2008 alone this mechanism enabled Lehmans to remove 50 billion dollars from its balance sheet, allowing it to maintain a decent credit rating and investor confidence.

The report says that Lehman was unable to get an American law firm to sign off these transactions, and instead moved the work to its London office, with the blessing of a leading city law firm. The bank's auditors also come in for criticism. Ernst and Young is accused of failing to question and challenge improper or inadequate disclosures in the bank's results.

· bankruptcy

· state of being unable to pay what you owe

· the Great Depression

· a period of time, which began in 1929, when most of the world economies were in decline

· deliberately used financial trickery

· knowingly or purposefully changed the financial figures in a dishonest way

· this mechanism enabled

· this way of working allowed

· to maintain a decent credit rating

· to continue to appear to be a good and reliable bank

· to sign off these transactions

· to agree to these dealings

· with the blessing of

· with the approval of

· auditors

· people whose job it is to carry out an official examination of the accounts of a business and to write a report on it

· improper or inadequate disclosures

not giving enough information openly and honestly

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Easyjet accused of breaking labour laws

The low-cost airline, Easyjet, will be brought before a French court accused of violating French labour laws. The company may now face a fine of up to 10 million euros.

Easyjet has been under investigation here in France since 2006 when an inspection of their operations at Paris Orly airport showed they'd failed to register 170 employees to the French authorities.

The budget airline is accused of breaking strict labour laws and is now being pursued by the state prosecutor for millions of euros in unpaid social security and health insurance contributions. The budget airline insists that its staff were hired under British contracts and therefore were not subject to French rules. Orly airport, it claims, was merely a rest area for its workers and it was the planes themselves, and not France that served as their workplaces.

The French authorities point out however that most of the Easyjet staff lived and paid their taxes in France and many were working solely on internal flights between Paris and Nice.

· budget

· low-cost or cheap

· pursued by the state prosecutor

· followed by the official who is responsible for trying to prove in a law court that people accused of crimes are guilty

· social security and health insurance contributions

· money that employers pay to cover the costs of their employees' sickness or illness

· hired

· given jobs or employment

· were not subject to

· did not have to follow or obey

· claims

· says that something is true or is a fact, although you cannot prove it

· merely

· only

· served as

· was used as, acted as

· authorities

· people in power (in the government)

· solely on internal flights

only on flights that go between places inside a country (here, France), rather than international flights which go between two different countries

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Argentina re-enters world finance market

Argentina has offered to swap bonds that it failed to pay back nine years ago, at one third of their value. However, the offer may be a disappointment to some investors.

Argentina needs to access global markets because it faces tight financing and rising debt obligations this year. But Latin America's third-biggest economy has been a pariah since it defaulted on around 100 billion dollars worth of debt in 2001.

The Argentine government now wants to restructure 20 billion dollars in defaulted debt and nine billion dollars in accumulated interest.

The terms aren't as favourable as some investors had hoped and regulatory approval is still pending in Europe and Japan.

But the government hopes the offer will end investor lawsuits which led to the freezing of the country's assets in foreign banks and clear the way to return to the debt markets.

· access

· be able to get into

· tight financing and rising debt obligations

· not having much money to spend and owing a lot of money to other people or countries

· a pariah

· someone (or here, a country) who is not accepted by a social group, especially because he, she or it isn't trusted

· defaulted

· didn't repay the money it had borrowed

· restructure

· (specialised financial term) come to an agreement about repaying a loan

· accumulated interest

· the gradually increasing amount of money you have to repay in addition to the amount you borrowed