After a court battle that lasted half a decade, Sears may finally be free of allegations that it should have disclosed talks leading up to its merger with Kmart before the deal was announced in late 2004.

The practice is dubbed "pay to delay," or "reverse settlement." It happens when a brand-name drug company gives a generic challenger a lot of money, and the generic company agrees to keep its product off the market. On Monday the Justice Department filed a brief at the request of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that these settlements presumptively are anticompetitive violations of the Sherman Act.

On Monday BP and Anadarko finally decided to end the multibillion-dollar game of finger pointing that's been keeping the companies' lawyers busy since the Deepwater rig exploded last year.

The Blog at Legal Times reports on a qualified loss for tobacco companies in their appeal of the government's massive RICO case, United States v. Philip Morris. Reporter Mike Scarcella writes that the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld D.C. federal district court judge Gladys Kessler's landmark ruling and found Big Tobacco liable in a decades-long conspiracy to deceive consumers about the adverse health effects of smoking. The appeals court, however, rejected the government's request to seize billions of dollars in corporate profit.