Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd secured the record judgment in its long-running securities fraud class action against Household International Inc., a unit of British banking giant HSBC Group.

The crusading, media savvy AG from Columbus negotiated last Friday's highly unusual $725 million class action settlement with AIG without any outside counsel in the room. But that's hardly the only Wall Street case on Cordray's docket.

Retractable Technologies argued that rival Becton Dickinson attempted to monopolize the market for safety syringes by making deceptive statements about the effectiveness of its products.

Eight months ago Manhattan federal district court judge Robert Sweet threw out ERISA and derivative claims against Bear Stearns, though he allowed securities claims in the mammoth case to move forward. Now the ERISA plaintiffs and their lawyers at Keller Rohrbach and Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check get to keep pressing their claims as well.

Merck became just the latest healthcare company to strike a major settlement with the Justice Department on Tuesday, agreeing to a $321.6 million criminal fine and a $628.3 million civil settlement to resolve claims over its marketing of the painkiller Vioxx.