CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Lawyers for Enron Corp. investors will get a record $688 million in legal fees for recovering more than $7.2 billion from the failed energy trader's lenders, auditors and directors, a judge ruled yesterday.

The fee is the largest ever in a U.S. securities-fraud case, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon found the payments was justified in light of the record-setting amount the lawyers recovered for Enron investors, who sued for more than $40 billion in losses.

The court ``finds no windfall'' in fees awarded to Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, ``but a reasonable fee earned by an extraordinary group of attorneys who achieved the largest settlement fund ever despite the great odds against them,'' the Houston-based Harmon wrote in her decision.

The lawyers spent more than 280,000 hours preparing for trial and negotiating out-of-court-settlements with Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Arthur Andersen LP, Kirkland & Ellis, Enron's former outside directors, and others, according to Harmon's ruling.

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