Most of the claims for damages by big banks against Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc are excessive and will be challenged in the courts, Lehman Chief Executive Bryan Marsal said in an interview on January 12. Speaking to the Financial Times, Marsal said he hoped that the threat of bringing some of the banks' claims before the courts would encourage other creditors "to be more reasonable."

The bankrupt investment firm, whose collapse accelerated the global financial meltdown, faces more than 64,000 claims from creditors with a face value of more than $820 billion.

Marsal said many of the claims from banks were far in excess of actual losses. He plans to make an example of big banks seeking to claw back billions of dollars of losses linked to trades on derivatives, the FT reported. "We are going to go after the outliners," he was quoted as saying. "We plan to bring these claimants in front of the judge to argue why this claim is not warranted and by doing so persuade the other claimants to be more reasonable.

"There are a lot of innocent people that got hurt big time by the collapse of Lehman and we need to make sure the banks understand that this is not a profit windfall, that damages being claimed ... are in most cases far in excess of losses.

"We will be in court with these claims in the second quarter, if these banks don't come to their senses before." Last November, Marsal told a bankruptcy court that the claims against Lehman could reach $1 trillion.

Copyright Reuters, 2010