The O2’s Indigo room, usually the preserve of after-show parties for the likes of Prince, is set to host an extraordinary piece of corporate theatre.

Thousands of angry bankers and hedge fund managers owed money by Lehman Brothers International Europe, the bankrupt investment bank, are expected to descend on the O2 ’s smaller venue at 11am today for their first public showdown with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the administrator. The assets of hundreds of hedge funds brokered by Lehman’s prime brokerage arm and thousands of investment banks with which the US bank traded were frozen when Lehman went under in September. PwC has said that 140,000 trades failed as a result of the collapse.

Staff from PwC were yesterday laying out chairs in Indigo for 1,800 creditors. The accountancy firm said that it expected at least 1,000 bankers, hedge fund managers, trade creditors and their legal advisers to attend.

PwC does not yet know how many counterparties to Lehman trades are owned money, or how many owe money to the bank. Tony Lomas, one of the administrators, has already conceded that PwC could take as long as two years to unwind all the trades.

The list of counterparties runs to nearly 100 pages with thousands of possible creditors. Every major bank with a London arm – from Goldman Sachs to Gulf International Bank – is on the list.

Mr Lomas and his colleagues Stephen Pearson and Mike Jervis will begin with a report on why Lehman International Europe went bankrupt, and then offer a progress report on the administration. They will then call for a show of hands to approve proposals for the next steps. They are expected to be voted through.

— Officials of the San Mateo County Investment Pool, California, yesterday sued Lehman Brothers executives and the bank’s auditor in an attempt to recoup more than $150 million (£101 million) in losses. The lawsuit accused the executives of fraud for allegedly making repeated public statements about the bank’s good health while scrambling to avoid collapse.

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