As chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in the mid-1990s, Giuffra helped draft the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and hobble stock-drop suits. Since the financial crisis the PSLRA has gotten a vigorous workout; last Friday it gave Giuffra the ammunition he needed to knock out what remained of a class action against UBS over more than $100 billion in losses.

Barclays stood to earn double fees as the financial adviser to Del Monte and the source of financing for the private equity consortium that planned to buy the company. But there were a few things that the bank neglected to tell Del Monte's board along the way--and Vice-Chancellor Laster had a problem with that.

Class action litigation is beginning to take shape over allegations that major banks manipulated Libor, the benchmark rate used to calculate interest on trillions of dollars in securities globally. On Monday the federal district court judge hearing the litigation consolidated 20 class complaints, and appointed interim class counsel.

Ever since Visa and MasterCard reached a $7.2 billion agreement to resolve merchant claims over credit card "swipe fees," critics have been coming out of the woodwork. Now they've formally opposed the class action settlement in court, with the objector's lawyers at Constantine Cannon warning of "serious risks" if the deal is approved.

The billionaire Sam Wyly and his lawyers at Bickel & Brewer have long campaigned against a $143 million class settlement that Computer Associates International reached with its shareholders in 2003, in the wake of a massive accounting scandal. Their primary targets have been the plaintiffs lawyers that secured the deal, including the infamous Melvyn Weiss, formerly of the firm now known as Milberg. But Wyly's claims that the plaintiffs firms bungled the case keep missing their mark.