Plaintiffs achieved an unprecedented victory in the courts of Delaware on Monday, when the state's Supreme Court upheld a $2 billion award and attorney fees of $304 million in the Southern Peru derivative litigation. But the numbers don't capture another striking anomaly: The court failed to hold liable the parties that it thought were really responsible for the ill-fated deal at the heart of the case.

Kessler Topaz and Prickett, Jones & Elliott, fresh from winning a record $305 million attorney fee award in the Delaware Court of Chancery, want a judge to rule that companies can't adopt bylaws restricting shareholder suits to be filed exclusively in the Delaware court without first holding a shareholder vote. "Bring it on," says former SEC Commissioner Joseph Grundfest of Stanford Law, who's been championing such provisions.

The plaintiffs lawyers leading El Paso shareholders' assault on the company's planned $21 billion acquisition by Kinder Morgan lost their bid to enjoin the sale late Wednesday, but they sure got the judge's attention. Can they translate the opprobrium of Delaware Chancery Court chancellor Leo Strine Jr. into a big payday--and more than a little embarrassment for El Paso advisor Goldman Sachs?

The judge called the deal "half-baked justice at best," but still "better than nothing." And that's about the best Rakoff had to say for a case that's bedeviled him for six months.