Academic

However poor an investment the Nigerian barges (floating power plants) were for Enron, I would like to compare the loss with the taxpayer money wasted on the Nigerian barge prosecution.  Now, six years after it began, all charges against all defendants have been either overturned, vacated or dropped.  And, in return for the prosecutors' overreaching, the only thing society has to show for it is that several individuals spent months in jail awaiting trial and appeal.  Nice. (WSJ blog story here.)

A sample of earlier posts on Nigerian barge prosecution here (April 2007) and here (April 2006).

And for those of you who like to rail against frivolous securities fraud lawsuits or tort suits in general, note that any civil litigation was thrown out half a decade before the criminal train finally came to an end.

UPDATED:  I'd missed my colleague Larry Ribstein's post and his link to local blogger Tom Kirkendall.