A software developer is suing his former employer Lehman Brothers in a US$5 million lawsuit, over the mass lay offs of IT staff without the required notice.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of over 100 former employees by a computer programmer Miron Berenshteyen who was laid off by the failed investment bank.

Most of these staff worked at, or reported to, Lehman's datacentre in Jersey City or its Manhattan headquarters.

The lawsuit, filed at the Southern District of New York bankruptcy court, alleges that Lehman violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, which requires the bank to give workers 60 days advanced written notice of the termination of their jobs as required under US law.

Lawyers from Outten & Golden, representing Berenshteyn, are seeking to recover lost wages and benefits and other payments such as redundancy money and accrued holiday pay.

If the court agrees to let the class action go forward, it could include around 1,000 ex-employees and be worth more than $5 million. The lawsuit said the bank employed more than 100 employees who worked in total at least 4,000 hours per week, not including overtime.

When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September it had 25,000 staff in total, including more than 5,000 in the UK. The bank spent $1.14 billion last year on IT.