Beginning in late 1998, officials from several federal agencies in Canada and the United States became embroiled in a tedious and often contentious struggle to determine whice agency would be the first to prosecute the key parties involved in the Livent fraud. Those agencies included the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Securities Commission, the SEC and the U.S. Department of Justice, among others. Law enforcement authorities in the United States failed to win the cooperation of their Canadian counterparts in attempting to extradite Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb to face a series of federal fraud charges filed against them in U.S. courts. Even more frustrating to U.S. authorities was the snail’s pace at which Canadian authorities moved in pursuing legal action against the two alleged fraudsters.