The negative: litigation.
More damaging was litigation from First Quantum, which challenged the deal in court, winning a $1.25bn £744bnn) settlement.
Legal and accounting experts say that Ernst & Young could now face potentially damaging civil litigation by private plaintiffs or the Securities and Exchange Commission — or even criminal charges by the Justice Department.
The United States last year forced Switzerland to agree to a separate bilateral tax treaty to prevent the country's biggest bank, UBS, from facing damaging civil litigation in U.S. courts for helping thousands of Americans hide money in offshore accounts.
However, the Panel concluded that action is necessary to prevent a continuation of the cycle of damaging and inconclusive litigation.
Case law suggests such a lawsuit may prevail, yet relief would likely come only after years of litigation, when the political value of any damaging disclosures was long dissipated.
Even apart from the Supreme Court's damaging 2013 Kiobel decision, the best results ever reached from this litigation were two settlements, first with Unocal (on the eve of its merger with Chevron) and later with Shell.
"You can say, 'We looked into this as soon as we heard about it.' " It is pretty certain that everyone at Fidelity National wishes they had never heard about Mr. Norton, whose confessed crimes and damaging testimony in civil depositions have given rise to a snarl of litigation.
If nothing is done soon, Puerto Rico could face "cascading defaults", litigation and a "real risk of another lost decade, this one more damaging than the last," Weiss said.
It further suggested that the clause on the subjects of environmental public interest litigation should be revised as "in the face of the activities polluting environment and damaging public interests, every citizen of the People's Republic of China and every natural and legal person of the People's Republic of China can go to the people's court.
