The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition defence lawyers for Sino-Forest and some of the collapsed firm's former directors and executives have billed $41-million in legal costs over the past four years. The Globe's Jeff Gray writes lawyers for burned shareholders called the figure "staggering" and "astonishing." The legal bills in the high-profile case came up in a Toronto courtroom Monday as lawyers for Sino-Forest's former shareholders clashed with officials of the defunct company's insurers, which are paying the costs. At stake is whether investors will ever get a share of the rapidly depleting pot of money that is Sino-Forest's insurance policies, which include coverage of only $62-million; SinoForest's China-based founders, Allen Chan and Kai Kit Poon, face unlimited liability, court heard. Kirk Baert, a lawyer with Koskie Minsky LLP who acts for Sino-Forest shareholders, argued defence counsel spent "unnecessary time" on the class action case, dropping opposition at the last minute to the plaintiffs' motion to have the case certified by a judge in January and attending 19 witness cross-examinations, some as far away as Hong Kong and in some cases without asking "any substantive questions."