On September 15, after failing to find a suitor, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. With $639 billion in reported assets, Lehman represents by far the largest such filing on record.

Simultaneously, the firm’s British operations were placed in administration in London, a parallel process to protect the international unit from creditors; PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed to wind down the U.K. and European businesses.