Manhattan federal district court judge Harold Baer appeared sympathetic to the claims against the ratings agencies, but explained that he was bound by existing law to dismiss those claims.

Siding with a coalition of retail groups represented by Steptoe & Johnson, a judge in Washington ruled that the Federal Reserve shouldn't have adopted rules that he said inflated debit card transaction fees by billions of dollars.

A long-running patent brawl between Eastman Kodak Co. and Apple Inc. at the U.S. International Trade Commission has come to something like a draw, with defense wins for both companies. But given the timing of the rulings, Kodak probably got bruised the worst.

Lots of plaintiffs lawyers are frustrated with the ratings agencies' ability to squirm (so far) out of liability for the rotten mortgage-backed securities they blessed. Few are as fed up as Jerry Brown, who can't even get Moody's to respond to a state subpoena.

TCF National Bank challenged as unconstitutional on its face a provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act limiting the fees that banks can charge retailers for processing transactions on debit cards they issue.