Enron investors' final payout

In what looks likely to be the final chapter in a six-year legal saga, investors in the collapsed energy company Enron learned this week they will receive an average US$6.79 ($8.83) per share in compensation.

Investors paid up to US$90 a share for a stake in what was once one of the biggest and most well-respected companies in the US, but which was revealed to be a financial house of cards kept upright by a string of complex accounting frauds.

A US$7.2 billion compensation fund has been amassed since its bankruptcy in 2001, thanks to class action lawsuits against the banks which did business with Enron; banks which shareholders allege were aiding and abetting a fraud.

The settlement is the largest ever in a securities fraud case.

- Independent