Four years after regulators began investigating alleged collusion by the banks controlling the CDS market, private antitrust litigation is finally starting to take shape.

After hitting a roadblock erected by the U.S. Supreme Court in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the litigation boutique Lewis Baach has swerved to survive a major hurdle in its $1 billion state court case against Goldman Sachs & Co. over a CDO that a Goldman exec once called "one shitty deal."

In a consolidated case involving 87 antitrust suits against candy manufacturers, a federal district court judge in Harrisburg, Pa., has certified an appeal of his March 4 refusal to dismiss plaintiffs' claims of collusion and price-fixing.

If the judgment had been upheld, taxpayers would have paid the bill. The Department of Energy, which owned the former nuclear weapons plant, had agreed to indemnify the plant's former operators, Dow Chemical and Rockwell International.

Plaintiffs lawyers accusing the bankrupt securities firm MF Global of bilking customers out of $1.6 billion have expanded their civil suit with new claims against the auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A trio of plaintiffs firms spent six long years pressing claims over credit card swipe fees before reaching a record antitrust class action settlement Friday, setting themselves up for a potentially enormous fee award. But if a key plaintiff and its lawyers at Constantine Cannon get their way, the slog may not be over yet.

The Federal Trade Commission is fighting a two-front battle against deals in which brand pharma makers pay generics to keep their products off the market. It seems to be making political headway, but on Tuesday the FTC took a big blow in court--partly because of some questionable litigation strategy.