On Wednesday the federal home loan banks--which bought their mortgage-backed certificates for $8.8 billion--filed what looks to be the biggest challenge yet to Bank of America's proposed $8.5 billion settlement with the trustee for holders of Countrywide residential mortgage-backed securities.

N.Y. Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten, who's overseeing MBIA's big mortgage-backed securities suit against Countrywide and Bank of America, apparently got fed up with a flurry of letters from lawyers battling over BofA's separate $8.5 billion MBS settlement.

Last year's dismissal, under the Supreme Court decision preempting product liability claims for medical devices, was considered a landmark. But Medtronic decided to pay out an average $33,000 to plaintiffs before waiting to see what the Eighth Circuit would do.

Massachusetts Mutual and its lawyers at Quinn Emanuel crossed a major hurdle on Tuesday in a crush of litigation against banks that underwrote residential mortgage backed-securities. A federal judge in Boston largely denied motions to dismiss nine separate suits that Quinn Emanuel filed against Credit Suisse, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, WaMu Inc., and Goldman Sachs.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday supported efforts by Nike Inc. to rid itself of a rival's trademark suit by promising not to pursue its own lawsuit against the competitor, Already LLC.