With the clock winding down on an acrimonious legislative session, lawmakers appear to have settled on a new framework for environmental damage lawsuits that landowners file against energy companies that once leased their property.

As Wal-Mart reported higher-than-expected first-quarter earnings on Thursday, it suggested in a regulatory filing that the scope of an internal investigation into bribery accusations had widened beyond the retailer’s subsidiary in Mexico.

A federal judge rejected the argument this week of two men charged in a foreign bribery case that their former employer’s lawyers  effectively acted as government agents during an internal company investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices corporations, can usually count on support from Democrats and a rougher reception from Republicans. But, on Thursday, the agency found an issue on which its traditional friends are its critics and its traditional critics are its friends.

The key detail in the two securities fraud complaints filed so far against JPMorgan Chase isn't that CEO Jamie Dimon told analysts that news reports about the bank's risky credit default swap position were a "tempest in a teapot." Even though that's the statement both complaints pinpoint as best evidence so far of the bank's alleged deception, to understand the shape this litigation is likely to take, you have to check out the class period both complaints assert. It's unusually short for a securities class action, beginning on April 13 -- when Dimon made the fateful "tempest" comment -- and ending on May 10, the day the bank disclosed losses of $2 billion in CDS trades, with more to come.

The head of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, will be asked to testify before the Senate Banking Committee next month on the recently reported $2 billion trading loss, the committee’s chair announced today.

Charles Schwab Corp plans to wait until the end of a disciplinary proceeding before enforcing a change in its customer agreement requiring investors to give up class action rights, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Angela Montgomery failed to show that her doctor prescribed the medicine, Rebetol, because of Schering-Plough's marketing strategy, the Third Circuit held in its 35-page opinion in In re Schering-Plough . The New Jersey-based drug company pleaded guilty in 2007 to criminal charges related to its marketing of the drug and agreed to a $435 million settlement with the government. Montgomery's suit was one of many civil suits that followed and was consolidated into a class action to be transferred to Schering's home state.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has suggested that doctors use their authority "to educate people" about the benefits of the Obama administration's health-care law. This is an absurd position, in that the law makes no provision for tort reform.