Christine Hurt, Conglomerate blogger, former Houstonian and currently the Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Scholar in the University of Illinois College of Law, is working on an interesting paper that she describes here:

The prosecutorial response to white collar crime post-Enron has had some setbacks. In both the Arthur Andersen case and the Enron Nigerian Barge case, appellate courts eventually said that the fact pattern did not constitute the crime in question. However, as welcomed as these decisions are, they cannot turn back time. Arthur Andersen was destroyed by the investigation and conviction and, like a corpse after an autopsy, cannot be brought back to life. The defendants in the Nigerian barge case will never get back the years they spent defending themselves and actually living in prison, not to mention the untold defense costs. I am writing a paper on the relative burdens on the various parties in criminal and civil corporate misconduct cases, and I find it interesting that we have so many requirements and presumptions to save corporate civil defendants from vexatious litigation and exorbitant discovery costs, but we seem not to care about the corporate criminal defendant who must wait until a jury verdict or an appellate ruling to determine whether the prosecution was without merit.

Music to my ears! ;^)