Those newly filed Merrill-related securities class actions aren't at the top of B of A's legal to-do list. First, the bank wants Robbins, Russell to erase that stinging asset-backed securities verdict.

The folks left out of the money in Washington Mutual Inc.'s proposed reorganization plan tried to exclude huge chunks of the testimony supporting a $7 billion settlement between WMI, JPMorgan, and the FDIC, arguing that it was based on privileged materials they weren't allowed to see. They get credit for trying--but not for succeeding.

It was inevitable that the collapse of the $300 billion auction-rate securities market in 2008 would trigger securities litigation. But the ARS freeze also spawned a massive antitrust case, after a trio of plaintiffs firms cooked up a theory that the market's demise was triggered by an illegal boycott on the part of major banks.

Plaintiffs lawyers don't like an opt-in feature of the $160 million settlement between UBS and states attorneys general, concerned it may unfairly siphon claimants out of their antitrust class action. A lawyer for New York state accuses those lawyers of "fabricating reasons" to oppose the settlement.

A consolidated antitrust class action against four Chinese vitamin C makers case got smaller--but no less interesting--when one of the defendants agreed to a $10.5 million settlement. "This is the first shoe to drop in a Chinese cartel case, and it's a $10 million shoe," said William Isaacson of Boies Schiller, co-lead counsel for the direct purchaser class.