Accounting firm Lehman Brown to finally change its name?

In a new dispatch on how the American brand has been dented by the ongoing financial crisis, AFP says Chinese accounting firm Lehman Brown which has long been threatened with lawsuits from a "certain Wall Street investment bank" is now "suddenly open to a name change":

CHINA-BASED accountants Lehman Brown refused to budge when lawyers acting for a certain Wall Street investment bank sent threatening letters demanding they change their name.

The letters have stopped now, but the accountants are suddenly open to a name change, said Mr Dickson Leung, a senior partner at the firm.

Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and the global crisis that followed has led some in China to reassess their view of Wall Street, especially against the backdrop of their own country?s remarkable rise.

'From a Chinese perspective, in the past people thought: "Wall Street - that?s where people make a lot of money",' Mr Leung said by telephone from Beijing.

'Now the Chinese might be thinking: "Who knows? Maybe we can do better, we can create another Wall Street in China",' he said.

The accounting firm's name - the surnames of its US expatriate founders - attracted clients because it sounded 'very American', Mr Leung said, insisting the company had not just tried to copy the famous bank's similar moniker.

Shanghaiist took a quick look at the Lehman Brown website, but found absolutely no information as to who these Mr Lehman and Mr Brown might be.