I have blogged about delinquent communities here, here and here.

The problem with delinquent communities is that it's hard to bring all the perpetrators to justice. The lines are too blurred, it's too hard to make charges stick which means people usually get off on technicalities.

A great example of this is the case of Parmalat, Europe's biggest bankruptcy. Late last week, US District judhe Lewis A. Kaplan let Parmalat's auditors and bankers off the hook by dismissing lawsuits against them. The folks at Deloitte & Touche Tohmatsu International and its US and Italian units; Grant Thornton International and its US business; units of Bank of America Corp.; Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro SpA and units of Credit Suisse Group are all having a sigh of relief.

That follows last month's ruling from Kaplan that Citigroup, Bank of America, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Grant Thornton did not have to face charges because all of the alleged improper conduct took place outside of the US and were therefore not covered by US securities law.

The last few weeks have been busy for Judge Kaplan. Last month, he dismissed charges against 13 defendants in the KPMG tax shelter trial. Like the parties in the Parmalat case, they had been accused of aiding, abetting and profiting from dubious activity.