Plaintiffs have crossed a big hurdle in cases against E&Y, which was Lehman's auditor, and UBS, which sold structured products issued by Lehman.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit hasn't been much help so far to banks fighting class certification in mortgage-backed securities litigation. But that may soon change, if Credit Suisse and its lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher get their way.

Medtronic's lawyers at Kirkland failed to convince a St. Paul, Minn., federal district court judge to deny class certification on the grounds that shareholder plaintiffs in a stock-drop suit had fudged the testimony of 13 confidential witnesses. Ruling that it was "premature" to determine whether the plaintiffs had accurately represented witnesses' testimony, Judge Paul Magnuson certified the class on Monday.

In a closely-watched case that rested on the meaning of the word "make," the First Circuit concluded that the SEC couldn't accuse two brokers of making false statements just because they gave clients allegedly misleading prospectuses that they had no role in drafting.

Last week, seven major defense firms sent an unusual joint letter to the SEC, opposing its proposal to permit shareholders to nominate corporate directors. Wednesday the securities class action plaintiffs bar shot back, in an almost unprecedented show of interfirm cooperation.

The deal, negotiated by class counsel at Kessler Topaz and JPMorgan's lawyers at Paul Weiss, resolves ERISA claims by a certified class of pension funds that the bank recklessly invested their securities lending cash collateral in a structured investment vehicle that collapsed in 2008.

In a highly unusual ruling, Manhattan federal district judge Lewis Kaplan ordered former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld and four other former top Lehman officials to hand over detailed information about their finances. Kaplan is concerned about the fact that a $90 million settlement with shareholders would be covered by D&O policies, and would not require the defendants to pay anything out of their own pockets.

Fabrice Tourre, the former Goldman Sachs & Co. trader accused of duping clients into investing in a bum collateralized debt obligation, has lost a bid to further trim the SEC's case against him based on a landmark court decision limiting the reach of securities laws.