PricewaterhouseCoopers have secured a deal to distribute $11 billion to Lehman Brothers’ creditors.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), administrators for failed investment bank Lehman Brothers, has agreed a plan to return US $11 billion (£6.9bn) to its former investors.

In the news announced in a statement yesterday (29 December), PwC said that more than 90% of the affected clients had agreed to the Claim Resolution Agreement (CRA).

PwC predicts that the distributions will begin shortly after the bar date of 19 March 2010, as was set by the High Court.

Steven Pearson, Joint Administrator and Partner at PwC, said: “I am delighted that we have received overwhelming support for this arrangement to return assets to clients.

“The CRA now provides an agreed basis on which to systematically settle clients’ claims and reunite them with their assets.”

PwC was appointed administrator for the bank’s European operations in September 2008 when it became one of the first major casualties of the global economic downturn.

Since 15 September 2008 when the Lehman Brothers collapsed, PwC has held onto the assets of the bank’s clients - worth $32bn. $13.3bn of it has already been returned to creditors, which are predominantly investment companies and hedge funds.

The CRA will enable PwC to hasten the administration of Lehman Brothers, which had been previously estimated to take approximately ten years. Because of the CRA, PwC will be able to distribute the rest of the funds over the course of 2010.

Ordinary unsecured creditors are not affected by the latest announcement and the bar date set for them is 31 December 2010.