Ex-Lehman brokerage exec appeals over $19.6M bonus claim

An ex-Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. brokerage executive took his fight for $19.6 million in bonuses to a higher court after a bankruptcy judge said Barclays Plc didn't agree to be bound by his Lehman contract when it bought the brokerage. Maximilian Coreth, hired as a managing director of the Lehman Brothers Inc. brokerage's fixed income division in April 2008, was granted a base salary of $200,000 and a bonus of $9.8 million for each of 2008 and 2009, according to court documents. If dismissed without cause, he was entitled to two years' bonuses totaling $19.6 million. A U.S. court confirmed that London-based Barclays wouldn't be subjected to so-called successor liability when it bought the defunct firm's North American business in 2008, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck wrote in February as he dismissed Coreth's suit. Lehman filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history in September 2008. Offering jobs to Coreth and another ex-Lehman employee, “Barclays states that as a Barclays employee, you will continue to receive your current base salary or applicable commission based remuneration,” the judge wrote. “Barclays did not make any commitment in either of the e-mails offering employment to make any bonus payment or assume any obligation arising under any LBI employment contract.” Michael O'Looney, a Barclays spokesman, declined to comment on the appeal, made in U.S. District Court in New York. --Bloomberg News--