A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday conditionally approved a $602 million insider trading settlement that SAC Capital Advisors reached with the SEC last month. But he also became the latest judge to question the SEC's practice of allowing defendants to settle enforcement actions without admitting or denying the allegations.

For the third time in less than a year, the Justice Department has busted out the Civil War-era False Claims Act to sue a major bank for fraud in connection with the mortgage crisis. This time, the case was brought by a Citi whistleblower who stands to take home a big share of the government's recovery.

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.

As we predicted, the SEC is appealing Judge Rakoff's decision last month to reject the agency's $285 million proposed settlement with Citigroup. The move could backfire enormously, but SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said Judge Rakoff's "new and unprecedented standard" for weighing settlements could spell disaster for the agency and investors.

Manhattan federal district court judge Harold Baer appeared sympathetic to the claims against the ratings agencies, but explained that he was bound by existing law to dismiss those claims.

Deutsche Bank and Citigroup agreed to pay up rather than join Goldman Sachs, Royal Bank of Scotland, and JPMorgan Chase on the list of banks sued by the National Credit Union Administration and its lawyers at Korein Tillery and Kellogg Huber.

When it comes to interpreting the Supreme Court's landmark securities case, judges aren't buying what the plaintiffs are selling. Here, the plaintiffs argued that their stock purchase, executed on the Swiss stock exchange, had a sufficient domestic nexus because their order was placed in Chicago. Manhattan federal district court Judge John Koeltl wasn't swayed.