In the traumatic weeks surrounding the collapse of Lehman Brothers, news headlines were dominated by the failure of one of the world’s best known investment banks and the collateral damage inflicted on the global financial sector as the default rippled through the system.
Yet missing from the narrative was the work of a group of players in the financial services industry who make it their business to deal with the possibility of such events – albeit not, up to that point, on such a scale. Clearing houses and settlement systems set to work to establish who owed what to whom, and how positions could be safely unwound to avoid the damage spreading.
