diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index cf2a7ed55..5d9a32755 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -25,6 +25,9 @@ Fixed bugs:
 * ant.bat now supports the ANT_ARGS environment variable again (like
   Ant 1.5 did).
 
+* The "plain" <junit> <formatter> could throw a NullPointerException
+  if an error occured in setUp.
+
 Other changes:
 --------------
 
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit/PlainJUnitResultFormatter.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit/PlainJUnitResultFormatter.java
index 97c5bb9b2..c9688be26 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit/PlainJUnitResultFormatter.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit/PlainJUnitResultFormatter.java
@@ -203,10 +203,14 @@ public class PlainJUnitResultFormatter implements JUnitResultFormatter {
                 return;
             }
             Long l = (Long) testStarts.get(test);
-            wri.println(" took " 
-                        + nf.format((System.currentTimeMillis() - l.longValue())
-                                    / 1000.0)
-                        + " sec");
+            double seconds = 0;
+            // can be null if an error occured in setUp
+            if (l != null) {
+                seconds = 
+                    (System.currentTimeMillis() - l.longValue()) / 1000.0;
+            }
+            
+            wri.println(" took " + nf.format(seconds) + " sec");
         }
     }