State Street to Compensate Netherlands Pension Fund for Lehman Loss

(January 6, 2010) — A Dutch court has ordered State Street Global Advisers (SSgA) to pay more than 40 million euros ($58 million) in damages to Stichting Pensioenfonds OPG for investment losses during the Lehman Brothers collapse.

The Utrecht, Netherlands-based €203 million ($292 million) pension fund of pharmaceuticals wholesale group Mediq issued a lawsuit against SSgA because the firm believed SSgA violated its guarantee of guarding OPG’s investments from bankruptcy, according to investment and pensions publication IPE.com. SSgA is one of the industry’s largest institutional asset managers with $1.74 trillion in investment accounts and mutual funds.

“We consider the Dutch court ruling as an important step in recovering the lost assets which account for approximately a quarter of our scheme’s total assets,” said Van Buttinga, spokeswoman for the pension fund, to IPE.com.

Lehman Brothers filed the biggest U.S. bankruptcy in history in September 2008, with the firm holding more than $600 billion in assets.