Editing Repurchase agreement (section)

=== Lehman Brothers' use of repos as a mis-classified sale ===
The investment bank [[Lehman Brothers]] used repos nicknamed [[Repo 105|"repo 105" and "repo 108"]] as a [[creative accounting]] strategy to bolster their profitability reports for a few days during reporting season, and mis-classified the repos as true sales. New York attorney general [[Andrew Cuomo]] alleged that this practice was fraudulent and happened under the watch of accounting firm [[Ernst & Young]]. Charges have been filed against E&Y, with the allegations stating that the firm approved the practice of using repos for "the surreptitious removal of tens of billions of dollars of securities from Lehman’s balance sheet in order to create a false impression of Lehman’s liquidity, thereby defrauding the investing public".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.accountancyage.com/2010/12/21/ey-sued-over-lehmans-audit/|title=E&Y sued over Lehmans audit|date=21 December 2010|website=Accountancy Age|language=en-GB|access-date=23 September 2019}}</ref>

In the Lehman Brothers case, repos were used as [[Tobashi scheme]]s to temporarily conceal significant losses by intentionally timed, half-completed trades during the reporting season. This mis-use of repos is similar to the [[Swap (finance)|swaps]] by [[Goldman Sachs]] in the [[Greek Financial Audit, 2004|"Greek Debt Mask"]]<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html|title=Greek Debt Crisis: How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt|last=Balzli|first=Beat|date=8 February 2010|work=Spiegel Online|access-date=23 September 2019}}</ref> which were used as a Tobashi scheme to legally circumvent the [[Maastricht Treaty]] deficit rules for active [[European Union]] members and allowed Greece to "hide" more than 2.3 billion Euros of debt.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/goldman-sachs-greece-derivatives-idUSLDE61L1KH20100222|title=Goldman Sachs details 2001 Greek derivative trades|date=22 February 2010|work=Reuters|access-date=23 September 2019|language=en}}</ref>