Lehman 1-year on: Govt inaction sent markets to brink of collapse

On the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, fund management groups agree it was the "erroneous" decision to let the investment bank fail which almost crippled the global financial system.

Unlike the rescue of Bear Stearns, the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and subsequent assistance to AIG, Lehman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 15 September last year after it could not obtain eleventh hour US Government assistance. Fund groups agree the authorities underestimated the impact Lehman's demise would have on the financial world. "I believe we were within days of the system imploding," Schroders CIO Alan Brown says. "The inability of funding and borrowing got so extreme at the point of Lehman's. "Was Lehman's too big to be allowed to fail - yes, it probably ...