THE details have been released of an out-of-court settlement reached by the Perpetual Trustee Company with Lehman Brothers. Henry Davis York worked on the deal with Sidnley Austin in London and New York. 

The settlement was reached for retail investors who bought Mahogany Capital credit linked notes (CLNs) backed by the Lehman Brothers sponsored "Dante" note program and who will recover approximately A$100m from their A$125m investment.

Henry Davis York advised Perpetual Limited since Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008 and assisted Perpetual negotiate a settlement with Lehman Brothers in November last year following a complex cross border insolvency dispute.

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Henry Davis York's lead partner on the case, Alex Mufford said: "The dispute was hard fought and ran for nearly two years with proceedings across three jurisdictions of the UK, the US and in Australia."

Mufford said the case went to the Supreme Court (formerly House of Lords) in the UK. "[It] may well have followed the same course in the US until the out-of-court settlement."

Henry Davis York represented Perpetual in all aspects of the matter and negotiated the terms of the settlement with Lehmans, with the assistance of lawyers from Sidley Austin in London and New York and leading counsel on-the-ground in the UK.

"Our team has been involved in engineering an out-of-court result for Perpetual and importantly, for the one thousand retail investors in Australia, New Zealand and PNG who Perpetual represents including individuals, charities and local councils," Mufford said.

"The result is testimony to the strategic vision, expertise, hard work and dedication of our team."

Henry Davis York's cross disciplinary team was led by Alex Mufford and included partners and cross border insolvency experts, Scott Atkins and John Martin, along with senior associates Laura Farley and Kylie Lowder.