After the plaintiffs lawyer in a qui tam case against Sallie Mae and several other defendants repeatedly missed deadlines and court appearances, a Chicago judge gave him a final warning: One more misstep, and the case would be dismissed. Soon thereafter, the plaintiffs lawyer leaked a confidential document. True to his word, the judge bounced the case. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit said the judge had not overstepped his bounds.

We suspected that lawyer David Grais, who has been agitating on behalf of certain Countrywide MBS holders for some time, might not be on board with the deal announced Wednesday, given that it was negotiated without his participation. In a court filing on Wednessday, Grais confirmed that he's not happy.

YouTube's $1 billion copyright showdown with Viacom over Internet content keeps getting more interesting.

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.