Months after the Federal Housing Finance Agency filed a batch of suits against the banks that sold allegedly flawed mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both sides are still arguing over how to coordinate the litigation. Several defendants want the FHFA's suit against Ally Financial to be a test case, but on Monday the agency recommended that its claim against JPMorgan be put on the fast track instead.

A group of several hundred black financial advisors who are suing Merrill Lynch for racial discrimination got good news on Friday as an appellate court ruled that they could proceed with their class action against the brokerage firm, reversing a lower court opinion denying certification. Even more significantly, the appellate panel agreed with the plaintiffs that in this case, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes could be used to support class certification rather than deny it.