Excel Error Causes Barclays to Overpurchase Lehman Assets
In another example of Excel errors in the news, hidden rows left unexamined in a spreadsheet have caused a significant problem for Barclays:
A reformatting error in an Excel spreadsheet has cropped up in the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history, prompting a legal motion by Barclays Capital Inc. to amend its deal to buy some of the assets of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Contracts that had been marked as “hidden” in the spreadsheet when it was received by the law firm were added to the purchase offer during the reformatting process, according to the motion. Those contracts weren’t supposed to be part of the deal.
From the Computerworld Article “Excel error leaves Barclays with more Lehman assets than it bargained for” click the title to read the whole story.
This serves as a strong reminder of what can happen when hidden data in spreadsheets isn’t handled carefully. Tools such as Detect can make the process of checking a sheet for hidden data much easier, and might have caused someone to notice the hidden data and remove it before it became a problem.