Then-New York Attorney Andrew Cuomo announced the state's case against Bank of America over its Merrill Lynch acquisition more than two years ago, promising with great fanfare to hold the bank and two of its executives accountable for an "enormous fraud" to conceal Merrill losses. So why has the case been all-but stalled ever since in New York state court?

The high court ostensibly addressed only f-cubed securities claims in its landmark Morrison v. NAB opinion. But defendants--and judges--are finding the ruling extends beyond those limits.

The judge granted preliminary approval to the settlement--which would have permitted the digitization of millions of books and granted copyright holders a share of Google's revenue--back in November 2009. But objectors to the deal, including the Justice Department, ultimately convinced Judge Chin the settlement wasn't "fair, adequate, and reasonable."

"We were dealing with people at DOJ that were, in fact, very smart and, in fact, very fair and open-minded," said Brodsky, who represented AIG executive Andrew Forster.

While Chevron's fight in the Second Circuit to obtain outtakes from the documentary Crude has become a First Amendment cause c�l�bre, the larger story is about the wholesale export of U.S.-style discovery to international disputes.