The accounting rules allow companies tomove debt off their balance sheet by employing operating leases instead of capital leases to account for certain assets.
Special-purpose vehicles usually are formed tomove assets off a company's balance sheetto help avoid some regulatory scrutiny and capital requirements.
The agency is gathering information from 11 major banks about their activities involving repos, an accounting technique that Lehman used tomove billions of assets off its balance sheet each quarter end, and which the examiner claims deliberately masked the true nature of its leverage.