Four years after regulators began investigating alleged collusion by the banks controlling the CDS market, private antitrust litigation is finally starting to take shape.

The class, which includes a huge swath of U.S. industry, accuses CSX, Union Pacific, and others of fixing prices for fuel surcharges. Treble damages could run into the billions of dollars.

The folks at Drug and Device Law are already calling a Minnesota federal district judge's ruling to dismiss with prejudice scores of product liability cases involving a Medtronic cardiac defibrillator system "an early entry for one of the top ten decisions of 2009." Judge Richard Kyle's ruling in the Sprint Fidelis consolidated cases is considered to be the first major decision to rely on the Supreme Court's 2008 ruling in Riegel v. Medronic, Inc., which found that suits against medical device makers are pre-empted by federal law.

The auditors hoped to use to the Second Circuit's 2011 decision in Fait v. Regions Financial to escape securities claims related to the bankrupt oil shipping company Overseas Shipholding Group. A judge in New York wasn't having it.