In a post-hearing brief, prosecutors argue that any failure to disclose a previous SEC investigation of Raj Rajaratnam to the judge who approved the wiretap of his phones was, at most, an innocent mistake.

The Litigation Daily covered lots of rulings by lots of judges in 2012, and sometimes they can all blur together. But a few judges stand out.

A week after winning a $169 million jury verdict in a case against three former IndyMac executives, the FDIC reached a settlement on Friday with Michael Perry, the failed mortgage lender's ex-CEO. In the settlement, Perry denies any liability for the problems that sank the mortgage lender, but agrees to pay $1 million to the FDIC, which also intends to recover another $11 million through the director and officer insurance policies that covered Perry.

SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White chose Philip Falcone and his hedge fund, Harbinger Capital Partners, as the agency's first target in an effort to extract tougher settlements from defendants. What hasn't been publicly noted is that Harbinger is currently a client of White's former firm, Debevoise & Plimpton.