And probably some nightmarish dreams for one or two partners.

The report suggested that Ernst & Young “was professionally negligent in allowing those [Repo 105] reports to go unchallenged” and that there could be a colourable claim for professional malpractice against the accountancy giant.

Which could be pretty sizeable obviously, hence the survival talk doing the rounds. John Carney at TBI commented:

That may not sound like a mortal threat against Ernst & Young. But the damages here could be enormous. A successful lawsuit against E&Y could result in a court finding that the failure to properly advise the audit committee prevented Lehman from taking genuine steps to substantially reduce its leverage, which may have saved the firm from bankruptcy. Which is to say, E&Y could find itself blamed for all the losses to Lehman shareholders. That would be a stretch—such a claim would be speculative—but it still should be scaring the heck out of the partners.

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Seen any scared looking middle-aged men or women recently?