Enron's 1.5 million eligible  individual shareholders and entities like pension funds will collectively receive $7.2 billion in settlements from financial institutions accused of participating in the fraud, under a federal court approved distribution plan. Of this their lawyers will get a whopping $688 million in legal fees, plus interest, the largest ever legal fees for a securities fraud case in the US.

The settlement amount has been accruing interest since 2002 and includes the lawyers' fees.

Shareholders and investors had filed a $40-billion lawsuit against Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and others for colluding with Enron in accounting frauds that led to the company's downfall.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, has vehemently opposed to the $688 million being awarded to lawyers of San Diego-based Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, instead of the money going to the hardworking men and women who suffered from Enron's demise.

Judge Harmon ruled that the lawyer's rate of 9.5 per cent was far lower than in comparable class actions and the lawyers had logged in 280,000 hours preparing for the trial by organizing millions of documents and examining more than 400 witnesses.

Once the seventh-largest US Fortune 500 company, Enron went bankrupt in December 2001 after hiding billions in debt with accounting tricks and making loss-making ventures appear profitable, with banks playing a major role in the fraud by funding the company's dubious deals.

The collapse led to 4,000 employees losing their jobs,  a $60-billion loss from erosion of market value of its stock, more than $2 billion worth of pension plan losses and billions of dollars of losses for investors.

Enron chairman Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling were convicted in 2006 for their dubious roles which led to the company's collapse

Lay passed away in July 2006, just six weeks after his criminal conviction on six counts of conspiracy, wire and securities fraud over the collapse of the energy trading multinational. A jury at a Houston, Texas court had found him instrumental in billions of dollars worth of accounting irregularities which prompted the collapse of Enron, once America's seventh largest company with more than $100 billion in annual revenue.

Each of Lay's convictions carried terms of between five and 10 years and he was expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. However, the conviction was quashed on the ground that he died before he could appeal against the verdict. (See: The final collapse: Enron's Kenneth Lay passes away)

Skilling, oce being groomed to take over the top job from Lay, however, received a 24-year prison in October 2006 (See: Former Enron CEO sentenced for 24-year)

About 1.5 million people and entities who had purchased Enron or Enron-related securities between September 9, 1997, and December 2, 2001 are eligible for the share and will get an average of $6.79 per share of common stock and an average of $168.50 per share of preferred stock.

The stock's purchase price and the type of stock bought will be the formula devised to distribute the $7.2 billion settlement. At its peak, Enron's stock was quoted as high as $90 per share, before crumbling to a low of $1 just before the company declared bankrupt.

Former Enron directors were the only individuals who collectively settled for $168 million while financial institutions settled with payments of $2.4 billion from CIBC, $2.2 billion from JPMorgan Chase and $2 billion from Citigroup. Smaller amounts come from Arthur Andersen, Lehman and Bank of America among others.

The bankrupt energy giant's creditors have been more fortunate as they had begun receiving their payments earlier. By June 2008, the Enron Creditors Recovery Corp, the new name of Enron Corp after it emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2004, had repaid creditors over $20 billion, almost triple the amount originally anticipated, at 50.3 cents on the dollar, while Enron North America Corp creditors received 50 cents on the dollar, both excluding gains, interest and dividends.

After Enron's 'plan of reorganisation' was approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, the new board of directors decided to reorganise and liquidate certain of the operations and assets of the "pre-bankruptcy" Enron for the benefit of creditors.

Enron's bankruptcy in 2001 remains one of the largest and most complex bankruptcies in US history.