A feud between Mr. Friede, 70, and his two brothers over their mother's estate has led to litigation in three states, with the two brothers, the museum and Sotheby's auction house all laying claim to the art.
Judge Arthur D. Spatt of Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., ruled on Monday, after five years of litigation in three different courts, that the convicted man, Thomas F. Green of Selden, had been deprived of a fair trial because of ineffective assistance by his lawyer at the time.
The scandal has inspired litigation in ten countries, with several cases still ongoing.
He released a paper in March that found that suits naming multiple anonymous defendants were the most common form of copyright litigation in nineteen federal districts that he studied in 2013.
"So we were weighing in the balance our choice between continuing litigation in four different jurisdictions that would probably last another three to four years with no guarantee of winning and costs of anything up to £5m, or settling now for £12.3m which we could invest straight away for the benefit of the Westminster community".
The companies are wrapped up in litigation in five different countries, including Germany, South Korea, the U.K., Japan, and of course, here in the States.
The next seven months were pure boardroom drama, punctuated by public relations campaigns, charges of misrepresentation, poison pills, escalating bidding, litigation in two states, and, finally, a rescue by a once-spurned white knight.
Mr. Almunia has favored negotiated settlements over protracted litigation in his three years as the top antitrust official in Europe.
The path ahead for the litigation in all three cases is long, difficult to predict and risky, legal experts say.
Professor Lowenstein said there was certain to be immediate new litigation, in the three counties that are conducting the recounts, about what the standards should be for counting the ballots.
The settlements help end one of the longest chapters in the Enron story, which has produced a tidal wave of litigation in the seven years since the company's collapse.
