Nothing is easier than to ridicule America’s love affair with lawsuits: $54m for the man who lost his favourite trousers at the dry cleaners; billions for investors whose stocks go bad in the market – it is hard to defend such a system with a straight face. The fact that the infamous $54m trouser lawsuit got thrown out of court in the end is little consolation: the dry cleaners lost their shop, and their immigrant dreams were dashed by litigation. It is enough to make sane heads conclude, as many of America’s financial gurus recently have, that the law is crippling US competitiveness.

So last week’s news of the fall of two demons of the American plaintiffs’ bar – William Lerach and Melvyn Weiss, who pioneered the investor lawsuits that have terrified corporate America for decades – sounds like good news for the markets.