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brand identity Persuasive |. Where it adds value

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Search-and-rescue efforts recovered more bodies in hard-hit areas across a broad swath of the northeastern coast of Japan’s main island on Tuesday.

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Reuters

Japanese Self Defense Forces searched for victims Monday in the tsunami-racked Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan.

Meanwhile, the nation’s humanitarian and nuclear crisis appeared to take a turn for the worse four days after a historic earthquake rocked the archipelago and shut down the world’s third-largest economy.

The latest figures from Japan’s National Police Agency showed some 2,414 people confirmed dead and 3,118 others missing.

Those numbers are expected to rise as aid workers reach more devastated areas.

Rescue workers struggled to get food and water to Japan’s ravaged northern communities on Monday as the impact of Friday’s quake continued to ripple throughout the nation.

It raised new fears about its nuclear facilities, shaking its financial markets and bringing big chunks of its economy to a halt.

The U.S. Geological Survey updated the magnitude of the earthquake to 9.0 from 8.9, which it said made the quake Japan’s largest since modern recordings began 130 years ago.

National broadcaster NHK reported that more than 450,000 people had moved to temporary shelters in the affected areas.

The death toll in Japan climbed Monday as rescues scrambled to help survivors and more than a half a million people sought temporary shelters and food aid. Meanwhile, the risk of a nuclear meltdown is rising. Eduardo Kaplan has the latest details.

Ruined Homes and Radiation

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Reuters

Emiko Ohta, 52, can’t bear to look at the debris that was her home in Kuji, Iwate prefecture.

A day after sowing widespread confusion by announcing—and then postponing—rolling blackouts in Tokyo and other parts of eastern Japan to conserve energy, Tokyo Electric Power Co. started the planned power outages on Tuesday morning in bedroom communities in greater Tokyo.

A second round of blackouts in other areas was set to begin later Tuesday morning.

The lack of planning was apparent in the haphazard manner in which the power outages were carried out.

The blackouts were total—even critical infrastructure such as hospitals and traffic lights weren’t spared. Many communities seemed unable to dispatch enough police or other authorities to direct traffic.

In the town of Ageo in Saitama Prefecture, live footage of major intersections taken by helicopter and broadcast on Japanese television depicted chaotic scenes during the Tuesday morning rush hour.

With no traffic lights or police to direct vehicles, large trucks and buses awkwardly alternated the right of way at a major transportation artery with groups of passenger cars, pedestrians and people on bicycles.

East Japan Railway Co. and other railway companies operated more trains in the Tokyo area than they did Monday. However, services remained well below normal levels.

Investors in Japanese markets registered their waning confidence in the Japanese economy’s ability to bounce back from the disaster.

The Nikkei Stock Average dropped 6.5% in Tuesday’s morning session.

Then, following the comments from Prime Minister Naoto Kan during the break on radiation risks, stocks plunged further. By midafternoon, the average was down 14% at 8236.95.

Rescue workers, meanwhile, tried to bring supplies to thousands of residents of towns along the northeastern coast of Japan that were among the worst-hit communities.

Survivors told the nation via television that they didn’t have power and were running out of food and water.

People atop one building had written a huge character for “water” on the roof, so it could be seen by rescue helicopters.

Information on the progress of relief efforts was sketchy.

A spokesman for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces said they were in charge only of distributing food and water to regional supply points.

He added that they didn’t know how much had reached needy communities since regional governments were supposed to take the supplies from there.

Miyoko Sugiyama, who lived a few blocks from the beach near the hard-hit city of Sendai, said she was happy to escape with her husband and 14-year-old dog.

“There were 2,700 homes” in her neighborhood, she said. “Now there are only a few left.”

U.S. military forces, meanwhile, continued to amass in and around Japan as part of Operation Tomodachi (which means “friend” in Japanese), with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard three ships moving up through the Philippine Sea and toward the coast of mainland Japan. The U.S. armed forces–including the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps—have been engaged in search-and-rescue operations and resupply missions in cooperation with Japanese civilian and military relief efforts.

The 2,200 Marines and sailors of the 31st MEU, who are due to arrive Wednesday, will support elements of the Marine Expeditionary Force that already have been deployed.

“We are repositioning to be ready to support to our Japanese partners,” Col. Andrew MacMannis, commanding officer of the 31st MEU said early Tuesday. “We stand ready to help our partners in need as they work tirelessly to respond to this evolving crisis.”

Megumi Fujikawa, Kana Inagaki and Miho Inada contributed to this article.

Write to Kazuhiro Shimamura at kazuhiro.shimamura@dowjones.com

Japan’s nuclear-power crisis is reviving long-held doubts about the strength of the nation’s nuclear regulatory system and its independence from government efforts to sell nuclear technology abroad.

There aren’t indications that any government regulatory failures contributed to the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi complex in northeastern Japan, where government and industry officials are battling to keep three of the six nuclear reactors from overheating and releasing dangerous levels of radioactivity.

The health of the badly damaged nuclear plant in Japan is deteriorating by the hour. Video courtesy of Reuters

However, the woes there put a spotlight on Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which oversees design and regulation of Japan’s nuclear plants.

It also highlights past problems with falsified safety records at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and with its parent company, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, though there is no evidence those prior problems are adding to the current problems.

The Japanese nuclear safety agency, known as NISA, is part of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The larger ministry, known as METI, has in recent months revved up a push to help Japanese power companies, including Tepco, win deals to build nuclear reactors abroad.

A METI statement issued by ministry spokesman Tatsuji Narita says Japan maintains a healthy regulatory environment through a redundant, second agency attached to the Cabinet named the National Safety Commission. That agency reviews METI’s nuclear-regulation efforts with a focus on safety.

“Japan maintains the independence of its nuclear regulatory agencies through this redundant ‘double-check’ system,” the statement said.

In August, Masayuki Naoshima, then Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, led a delegation to Vietnam to promote the sale of nuclear power plants to the Southeast Asian country for the second phase of its atomic power project. The delegation included Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, as part of a group of Japanese power companies that banded together to win contracts in the face of rising competition from companies in South Korea and Russia, among other places.

Japan will likely win a contract to build Vietnam’s second nuclear power plant, following a joint statement late last year by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan saying that “Vietnam confirms that the Vietnamese government chooses Japan as a cooperation partner to build two nuclear reactors.”

Tepco couldn’t be reached to comment.

In the U.S., the previous nuclear-energy regulator, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, came under attack in the 1970s, accused by members of Congress of being unwilling to stand up to the commercial nuclear industry because it was supposed to promote the nuclear industry even as it assured public safety.

Confusion and panic levels are rising across Japan following another blast and fire in Fukushima. WSJ’s Mariko Sanchanta and Yumiko Ono separate fact from fiction in the latest nuclear reports.

In 1975, a new independent agency was created, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which was charged with overseeing safety issues. A newly formed Department of Energy was to guide research and grant monetary support to the sector.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant has a black mark on its record from earlier in the last decade, when a scandal involving falsified safety records led to parent company Tepco briefly shutting down its entire nuclear fleet in Japan. In 2002, Tepco admitted to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency that it had falsified the results of safety tests on the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor, which is now one of three reactors that workers are struggling to keep from overheating. The test took place in 1991-1992.

The scandal was the latest in a string of nuclear safety records cover-ups by Tepco, including the revelation that the company’s doctoring of safety records concerning reactor shrouds, a part of the reactors themselves, in the 1980s through the early 1990s. Five top executives resigned after the company admitted to having falsified safety.

In 2003, Tepco shut down all of its nuclear reactors for inspections, acknowledging the systematic cover-up of inspection data showing cracks in reactors.

Japanese regulators already have some credibility issues after previous episodes in which the strength of the response was called into question.

In Japan in 1999, an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction at a uranium-reprocessing plant killed two employees and spewed radioactive neutrons over the countryside. Government officials later said safety equipment at the plant was missing and the people involved lacked training, adding that their assessment of the accident’s seriousness was “inadequate.”

In 2007, an earthquake heavily damaged Tepco’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. The company initially said there was no release of radiation, but admitted later that the quake released radiation and spilled radioactive water into the Sea of Japan.

“The Japanese government is saying that the containment’s OK, but that belies belief when you see the violence of the explosion,” said John Large, a nuclear consultant, referring to the current troubles at the plant. He added, “Understandably, they do not want to panic their population.”

The recent problems have prompted new rounds of warnings from anti-nuclear groups. “A nuclear disaster which the promoters of nuclear power in Japan said wouldn’t happen is in progress,” the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center said in a statement on its website. “It is occurring as a result of an earthquake that they said would not happen.”

—Alison Tudor

and Dionne Searcey contributed to this article.

Barely two weeks after saying he was itching to make a big acquisition, Warren Buffett on Monday said his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. agreed to buy chemical company Lubrizol Corp. for about $9 billion in cash.

Berkshire said it would pay $135 a share, a 28% premium over Lubrizol’s closing price of $105.44 Friday. Buffett’s conglomerate will also assume about $700 million in Lubrizol debt.

The deal is one of the largest in Berkshire’s history, though dwarfed by the more than $26 billion Buffett agreed to pay a year ago for railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The Lubrizol acquisition, if completed as planned in the third quarter, would further move Berkshire into the industrial sector, as opposed to the insurance operations that have long been a major source of profit. Lubrizol makes additives for engine oils and industrial lubricants. Last month, it reported its fourth-quarter profit jumped 17% on higher revenue and gave an upbeat current-year outlook.

Other Berkshire acquisitions in recent years include the $4 billion purchase of Iscar, an Israeli metalworking company, in 2006; the $4.8 billion purchase of the majority of Marmon Holdings, the Pritzker family’s collection of manufacturing and service companies, in 2008; and smaller deals to buy Japanese toolmaker Tungaloy, electronic-parts distributor TTI and power company PacifiCorp.

Mr. Buffett had told his shareholders in his annual letter on Feb. 26 that he and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger were looking to do another “major” deal so Berkshire could continue to grow.

“We’re prepared,” he wrote. “Our elephant gun has been reloaded, and my trigger finger is itchy.”

The pronouncement touched off a round of speculation over what companies would be a good fit Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire. Mr. Buffett has professed a preference for businesses with little debt but with a substantial share of the market in their sectors, large competitive advantages over rivals, and solid management that he can leave in place. He has said that acquisition targets need to have pre-tax earnings of at least $75 million.

In Lubrizol, Mr. Buffett said Berkshire is adding a company that fits the mold.

“Lubrizol is exactly the sort of company with which we love to partner—the global leader in several market applications run by a talented CEO, James Hambrick,” Mr. Buffett said in the statement announcing the deal. “Our only instruction to James—just keep doing for us what you have done so successfully for your shareholders.”

Lubrizol earned a profit of $732.2 million last year, a 46% increase from 2009 as demand for its products increased. Revenues were $5.42 billion. The company gave an upbeat outlook for 2011 last month.

After the deal closes, Lubrizol will operate as a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. It will continue to be led by its current management team. Lubrizol, based in Wickliffe, Ohio, employs about 6,900 people and operates manufacturing facilities in 17 countries.

Citi and Evercore Partners are acting as financial advisers to Lubrizol, and Lubrizol’s legal counsel is Jones Day. Berkshire Hathaway’s transaction counsel is Munger, Tolles Olson LLP.

The close of the deal is expected in the third quarter.

Write to Erik Holm at erik.holm@dowjones.com

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan jumped into action Monday to temper the economic blow from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency that hit northern Japan, doubling the size of its asset-purchase program and pouring a record 15 trillion yen ($183.17 billion) into money markets to ease liquidity concerns.

“What we were most concerned about was the possibility that increases in anxiety and risk-aversion moves would negatively affect the real economy, so we judged it appropriate to mainly boost purchases of risk assets,” BOJ Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa said after the bank’s policy board meeting, which was cut to one day from two …

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Japanese sailors rescue Hiromitsu Shinkawa Sunday, two days after the 60-year-old was washed to sea on the roof of his Minamisoma home by a tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake. Thousands are feared dead.

Japan’s quake-ravaged northern communities continued to be pinched by food and water shortages Monday, while even cities far from the damage experienced “aftershocks” as the effects from Friday’s disaster rippled through the economy and markets.

Rescue workers struggled to bring supplies to thousands of residents of towns along the northeast coast, hardest hit by the 8.9-magnitude quake and tsunami on Friday. Survivors appeared on television, saying they didn’t have power and were running out of food and water. People atop one building had written a huge Chinese character for “water” on the roof, so it could be seen by rescue helicopters.

Residents are dealing with a lack of rations in Northern Japan, as transportation equipment is hampered in the aftermath of Friday’s quake. WSJ’s Eric Bellman reports from Sendai.

The official death toll continued to climb, reaching around 1,800 by Monday afternoon. National broadcaster NHK reported that more than 450,000 people had moved to temporary shelters in the affected areas.

Miyoko Sugiyama, who lived a few blocks from the beach near the hard-hit city of Sendai, said she was happy to escape with her husband and 14-year-old dog. “There were 2,700 homes” in her neighborhood, she said. “Now there are only a few left.”

Troubles continued to mount at the nuclear-power site in Fukushima Prefecture, where there was an explosion over the weekend. On Monday, an explosion occurred in the building housing a second reactor at the site, while the cooling system for a third reactor also failed, authorities said.

And in Tokyo, financial markets and commuters alike were pounded on the first working day after the quake.

Tokyo shares plunged, logging losses not seen since the first months of the global financial crisis. The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 9620.49, down 633.94 points or 6.2%—its sharpest single-day percentage loss since December 2008. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues slid 68.55 points, or 7.5%, to 846.96, its heaviest loss since October 2008.

To prevent a cash crunch, the Bank of Japan injected a record 18 trillion yen (about $220 billion) into the short-term money markets and doubled the size of its asset-purchase program.

Ruined Homes and Radiation

View Slideshow

Aly Song/Reuters

Emiko Ohta, 52, can’t bear to look at the debris that was her home in Kuji, Iwate prefecture.

Confusion reigned at Tokyo Electric Power Company, which said it would conduct rolling outages during the day in order to conserve power, then reversed course at the last minute when it saw energy demand was lower than usual. But Tepco’s plans caused Tokyo’s train companies to drastically cut back service, leaving thousands of commuters without a way to get to work.

“I was really confused about both the power cuts and the train services,” said Nobuyoshi Takashimaya, a 56 year old employee at an insurance firm in Tokyo. He said he had to walk one hour from home to reach his office because his train wasn’t running.

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MOSCOW — BP PLC on Saturday rejected a proposal that its Russian joint venture TNK-BP Ltd. join an alliance with state oil producer OAO Rosneft, while its Russian partners in TNK-BP rejected a compromise offer by the U.K. oil major, as pressure grows on BP to resolve a dispute that jeopardizes what Russian top officials have labeled a “historic deal.”

TNK-BP Ltd.–half-owned by BP–said Saturday it can no longer proceed with its plan to join an alliance between BP and Russian state oil champion Rosneft because its BP-nominated directors voted against the proposal at a board meeting.

BP announced in …

While all eyes are trained on Japan’s effort to overcome its biggest earthquake on record and the radiation threat from a damaged nuclear plant, some investors are raising eyebrows over the yen’s recent strength.

On Friday the Japanese currency appreciated sharply against the dollar after the massive earthquake sparked speculation that companies from the world’s third-biggest economy could start shifting funds back home from the U.S. and elsewhere to help pay to rebuild — something that happened after Japan’s last major earthquake in 1995.

But this knee-jerk response may prove short-lived, several investors and analysts say.

For starters, worries are …

BRUSSELS—European leaders agreed in the wee hours Saturday on a program of long-term economic overhauls to the 17-member euro zone, and authorized a beefing-up of the bloc’s bailout fund for troubled countries.

But the meeting here was marked by several bitter disputes. Ireland, which sought better terms on the €67.5 billion ($93.8 billion) bailout it received last year, was rebuffed after refusing to contemplate raising its low corporate tax rate.

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Associated Press

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with French President Nicolas Sarkozy during the EU summit in Brussels.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet pleaded with France and Germany to permit the bailout fund to buy some of the bonds of weak countries that the central bank has been accumulating during the crisis; he too was rebuffed.

The leaders formally agreed, as expected, to increase the amount the EU’s current, temporary bailout facilities can lend, to a total of €500 billion. They also agreed to create a new, permanent fund of the same size in 2013, when the temporary fund expires.

The meeting, which began Friday evening, was a stepping stone to a final deal that the leaders have promised will be concluded by March 25. Time is short. Tensions mounted in Greece after a weak budget report Friday and in Portugal after markets frowned on a bid for further fiscal cuts.

The leaders approved two other changes. First, the bailout funds will be able to buy bonds directly from euro-zone countries, presumably during regular debt auctions. Now, the fund can only make loans. Second, the bailout fund itself will be financed by at least some capital contributions from countries, instead of the current system of guarantees.

The first change will give the funds somewhat more flexibility, though the details of how purchases would work weren’t spelled out.

The second implies that weaker countries, whose guarantees aren’t as valuable as those of Triple-A-rated nations such as Germany, France and the Netherlands, may have to put up actual cash.

The leaders also agreed that bailout loans should carry lower interest rates, and they agreed that Greece’s rate should be cut by one percentage point. Athens, which received a bailout last spring, had asked for two.

But in a dramatic dispute, the Irish were told they couldn’t have a cut of one percentage point unless they raised their corporate tax rate.

Ireland’s newly seated prime minister, Enda Kenny, said after the meeting that he told the others he “couldn’t contemplate” a change to the tax rate. The Irish say their low corporate taxes—the rate is 12.5%–are central to luring foreign business to their soil and powering any economic recovery. Other countries chafe at this, particularly while writing Ireland billions in bailout checks.

“It wasn’t possible to reach a deal for Ireland this evening,” Mr. Kenny said.

Another major fight developed at the summit between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the one hand and Mr. Trichet on the other, a senior EU official said.

Mr. Trichet wanted the bailout fund to be able to buy existing government bonds—because the ECB holds €77 billion of sovereign bonds it wants to offload.

But the German and French leaders insisted that the bailout funds only be allowed to buy bonds directly from governments. Their view won the day.

Buying existing bonds could sharply enlarge the size of the bailout funds, one reason why lending countries don’t want it to happen.

Herman Van Rompuy, the EU president, said buying existing bonds wasn’t seen as “a core business” of the funds.

Ms. Merkel justified the decision to buy bonds directly from governments, saying: “I don’t think it has such a huge impact.”

Mr. Trichet said the decisions made at the summit “go in the right direction.”

The economic overhauls, originally dubbed a “pact for competitiveness” and renamed a “pact for the euro,” stem from a proposal made by Germany and France more than a month ago. But the version approved Friday during a lengthy dinner is vaguer than the original, and tough provisions have been softened or removed.

—Riva Froymovich, Costas Paris and Patrick McGroarty contributed to this article.

Write to Charles Forelle at charles.forelle@wsj.com

The U.S. government’s investigation into the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has hit daunting hurdles that could result in no civil or criminal charges ever being filed against the company’s former executives, people familiar with the situation said.

Richard Fuld Jr.

In recent months, Securities and Exchange Commission officials have grown increasingly doubtful they can prove that Lehman violated U.S. laws by using an accounting maneuver to move as much as $50 billion in assets off its balance sheet, which made it appear that the securities firm had reduced its debt levels.

SEC officials also aren’t confident they could win any lawsuit accusing former Lehman employees, including former Lehman Chief Executive Richard Fuld Jr., of failing to adequately mark down the value of the large real-estate portfolio acquired in Lehman’s takeover of apartment developer Archstone-Smith Trust or to disclose the resulting losses to investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

People close to the investigation cautioned that no decision has been reached on whether to bring civil charges, adding that new evidence still could emerge. Investigators are reviewing thousands of documents turned over to the SEC since it began its probe shortly after Lehman tumbled into bankruptcy in September 2008 and was sold off in pieces. Officials also have questioned a number of former Lehman executives, some of them multiple times, the people said.

But after zeroing in last summer on the battered real-estate portfolio and an accounting move known as Repo 105, SEC officials have grown more worried they could lose a court battle if they bring civil charges that allege Lehman investors were duped by company executives. The key stumbling block: The accounting move, while controversial, isn’t necessarily illegal.

In a possible sign that the probe has slowed, the SEC hasn’t issued a Wells notice to Lehman’s longtime auditor, Ernst Young, according to people familiar with the situation. The firm had concluded that the accounting in the Repo 105 transactions was acceptable. Wells notices are a formal signal that the SEC’s enforcement staff has decided it might file civil charges against the recipient.

An SEC spokesman declined to comment. In a statement, Ernst Young said the firm stands “behind our work on the Lehman audit and our opinion that Lehman’s financial statements were fairly stated in accordance with the U.S. accounting standards that existed at the time.”

The snags are the latest sign of trouble for the SEC and other U.S. regulators trying to punish companies and executives at the center of the financial crisis. So far, no high-profile executives have been successfully prosecuted. Last month, a federal criminal investigation of former Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo was closed without charges.

The U.S. government lost the only crisis-related case to go to trial when former Bear Stearns Cos. hedge-fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were acquitted in November 2009 of criminal charges related to the $1.6 billion collapse of their hedge funds.

If SEC officials decide not to take enforcement action against former Lehman executives, they likely would escape criminal prosecution, too. The Justice Department “tends to follow the SEC’s lead in these complex financial cases, so reluctance to pursue civil charges generally means the federal agencies won’t take a criminal case,” said Elizabeth Nowicki, a former SEC lawyer who is an associate professor at Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment on Lehman. In a statement, she said the agency “will continue to root out financial fraud wherever it exists. When we find credible evidence of criminal conduct—by Wall Street financiers, lawyers, accountants or others—we will aggressively pursue justice. However, we can and will only bring charges when the facts and the law convince us that we can prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”

A year ago, it looked as if the SEC and federal prosecutors had a road map to use against Lehman’s former top executives. Last March, the Repo 105 transactions were condemned by court-appointed examiner Anton R. Valukas, who said in a report that they enabled Lehman to “paint a misleading picture of its financial condition.”

In the transactions, Lehman swapped fixed-income assets for cash shortly before the securities firm reported quarterly results, promising to buy back the securities later. The cash was used to pay down the company’s debts. Emails sent by executives at the company referred to Repo 105 as a “drug” and “basically window dressing.”

Mr. Valukas concluded there were “colorable,” or credible, legal claims against Ernst Young, Mr. Fuld and former finance chiefs Ian Lowitt, Erin Callan and Christopher O’Meara.

All four former Lehman executives have been scrutinized by the SEC, according to people familiar with the matter. Their lawyers didn’t respond to calls seeking comment. They previously have denied any wrongdoing related to Repo 105.

A December lawsuit against Ernst Young by soon-to-depart New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo drew heavily on Mr. Valukas’s findings. Mr. Cuomo, who became New York’s governor in January, criticized the Repo 105 transactions as a “house-of-cards business model, designed to hide billions in liabilities in the years before Lehman collapsed.”

Mr. Cuomo’s successor, Eric Schneiderman, is “fully committed” to pursuing the case, a spokesman said. Ernst Young has vowed to vigorously defend itself against accusations that the maneuver violated generally accepted accounting procedures.

In contrast, SEC officials generally have concluded that the transactions were consistent with accounting standards, according to people familiar with the situation.

And agency officials aren’t convinced that Lehman shareholders suffered material harm, since executives were trading one type of highly liquid asset for another, these people said. They said the SEC would face a far lower bar if Lehman had converted illiquid or damaged assets, such as Archstone’s real-estate holdings, into cash using Repo 105.

Mr. Fuld and other former executives could face charges of making misleading statements about the company’s health before it sank. That likely would be an uphill battle for the government, according to people familiar with the matter, partly because the executives relied on legal and accounting opinions.

British law firm Linklaters LLP signed off on the Repo 105 transactions, all done through the securities firm’s European arm. Linklaters declined to comment.

SEC investigators also have looked for evidence that Lehman overvalued positions held by Archstone, which it acquired in 2007. SEC officials aren’t convinced, though, that they can build a strong enforcement action around such claims. In his report, Mr. Valukas wrote that he didn’t find “sufficient evidence to support a colorable claim for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with any of Lehman’s valuations.”

It isn’t clear what the Lehman executives have said to SEC officials during the probe. Last year, Mr. Fuld told lawmakers he had “absolutely no recollection whatsoever of hearing anything” about Repo 105 at the time of the transactions. Lehman’s demise was caused by “uncontrollable market forces” and the U.S. government’s unwillingness to rescue the firm, he said.

Beyond the Crisis

Status of enforcement actions against some of the highest-profile names of the financial crisis

Executive and company

SEC

Justice Department

N.Y. Attorney General
Joseph Cassano, American International GroupDecided last year not to file charges Decided last year not to file chargesNo actionFabrice Tourre, Goldman Sachs GroupSecurities fraud charges filed in April 2010No actionNo actionRalph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, Bear StearnsSecurities fraud charges filed in June 2008Acquitted in Nov. 2009 of criminal chargesNo actionAngelo Mozilo, Countrywide FinancialHe agreed in Oct. 2010 to pay $67.5 million to settle fraud and insider-trading chargesInvestigation closed without filing chargesNo actionKenneth Lewis and Joseph Price, Bank of AmericaNo action against individuals. Bank of America agreed to pay $150 million to settle fraud charges last yearNo actionCivil lawsuits alleging fraud filed Feb. 2010Gary Crittenden and Arthur Tildesley Jr., CitigroupThe two men agreed to pay fines totaling $180,000 to settle fraud charges last yearNo actionNo actionLee Farkas, Taylor, Bean Whitaker MortgageFraud charges filed in June 2010Arrested and charged with fraud in June 2010. Trial starts in April.No action

Write to Liz Rappaport at liz.rappaport@wsj.com