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.