Judges keep tossing securities class actions against the credit ratings agencies that blessed stinky mortgage-backed securities deals. But after courts see the testimony and internal e-mails that emerged at a Senate hearing Friday, the agencies may have a tougher time getting cases against them dismissed.

Penguin Group, one of several defendants in a massive antitrust class action brought by purchasers of e-books, has failed to convince a judge that the plaintiffs' claims should be heard in arbitration. On Wednesday, a U.S. federal district judge in Manhattan denied Penguin's motion to compel arbitration in the case, in which the plaintiffs claim that Penguin and four other publishers conspired to keep the prices of their e-books artificially high.

Class lawyers for settling dairy farmers have asked a federal judge in Tennessee for $55.7 million in fees and expenses for their work on the case against Dean Foods and a marketing co-op; most of that money would cover work performed by lawyers at defunct Howrey LLP who jumped to Baker & Hostetler last year.