G. Irvin Terrell of Baker Botts has learned a few things in his many trips around the block. So last June, when Grupo Mexico SAG suddenly decided not to call its majority shareholder, German Larrea, as a witness in a bench trial on the Mexican mining giant's liability to creditors of a bankrupt subsidiary, Terrell convinced a federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, to compel Larrea to testify. In the end, Terrell won a $6 billion victory for his client, Asarco.

Plaintiffs lawyers at Sanford Wittels cemented a $99 million wage-and-hour settlement for Novartis sales representatives on May 31--less than three weeks before the Supreme Court ruled that pharma sales reps aren't entitled to overtime pay. But the high court's decision came out in time to knock out a separate $70 million class action that Sanford Wittels brought against Novo Nordisk.

You have to give Matthew Gluck of Milberg credit for trying. In the face of what almost everyone thinks is a devastating Supreme Court ruling, Gluck is arguing that because Vivendi's ADRs were backed by common shares, its stock was actually traded on the New York Stock Exchange. One defense lawyer calls that contention "N-U-T-S."

A federal judge in New York cleared the way for Chesapeake Energy to redeem $1.3 billion in notes, rejecting arguments by BNY's lawyers at Sidley Austin that the company had missed a deadline for the buy-back.

For the antitrust bar, the ruling is an important clarification of Twombly pleading standards in Sherman Act cases. And for the rest of us, it raises the possibility of cheap music downloads somewhere down the road.

A California appellate court found that a group of retail pharmacies failed to show that pharmaceutical companies conspired to charge higher prices on their products in the United States compared to prices they charged in Canada.