Earlier this week, Apple suffered a setback in its case against Amazon when a federal judge denied its request for a preliminary injunction to stop Amazon from using the name.

Late last week, a federal judge in California gave preliminary approval to a settlement of the class action lawsuit regarding Facebook's Beacon program.

Last weeek, a judge issued a preliminary $171bn fofeiture striping Madoff of all his personal property and $80m in assets his wife Ruth claimed was hers.