It still may be too soon to tell whether there will be a tsunami of litigation over credit-default swap agreements gone bad, as some have predicted. But it's probably a safe bet that litigation initiated by a hedge fund against Citigroup and Wachovia won't do much to roil the waters. On Monday, Manhattan federal district court judge Laura Swain dismissed seven out of eight causes of actions brought by VCG Special Opportunities Master Fund against Wachovia.

Represented by Cravath and Greenberg Traurig, the retailer Big Lots alleges that Retail Intelligence Group induced at least 72 store managers to divulge trade secrets and confidential information, causing its stock to fall.

Huge swaths of the securities plaintiffs bar have their time and money tied up in class action suits against major issuers of mortgage-backed securities. But three years and change after the subprime meltdown, Bernstein, Litowitz, Berger & Grossmann is still the only plaintiffs firm to reach a settlement in any of the cases.

Amid the headlines generated by Thursday's $25 billion nationwide foreclosure settlement, the Justice Department reached a smaller deal with Bank of America over alleged Countrywide mortgage fraud that would normally garner front-page coverage of its own.