A former software developer at
Lehman Brothers has filed a lawsuit after1,000staff at a New
Jersey datacentre were made redundant.
Miron Berenshteyn was a senior Java programmer at the company
before he was made redundant
after
the investment bank filed for Chapter 11 in September.
The lawsuit, filed at the Southern District of New York
bankruptcy court, alleges that the workers were not given 60 days
advanced written notice of the termination of their jobs as
required under US law. They are seeking to recover lost wages and
benefits and other payments such as redundancy money.
Legal firm Outten & Golden is representing Berenshteyn in
the case with the total claims exceeding $5m.
When Lehman Brothers, which employed 5,000 UK staff, filed for
bankruptcy in September it signalled that the financial crisis had
entered a new phase.
IT staff were a major part of the jobs cull.
Analysts said only a quick sale of its business units would prevent
about 99% on all IT staff losing their jobs.
However, the high quality of the investment bank's IT staff
should stand them in good stead in the job market. Parts of the
bank have already been
sold to Asian bank Nomura as well as Barclays.