Lehman Brothers authorised payments totalling nearly $20m (€14.8m) to two executives who had been “involuntarily terminated” just days before the bank filed for bankruptcy protection, according to a US Congressional committee finding.

In a hearing on the collapse of Lehman Brothers before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Representative Chris Van Hollen, said that on September 11, four days before Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11, the bank's compensation committee approved cash payments of $16m to Benôit Savoret and $2m to Andrew Morton, who had both been involuntarily terminated.