After agreeing to pay the U.S. government $4.5 billion to settle criminal charges stemming from the Gulf oil spill, BP could face even higher civil penalties. Is such grave punishment in the government's best interest?

Bank of America will pay $2.4 billion to shareholders as part of a settlement announced this morning. It's compensation for maybe not sharing the whole story when B of A bought the failing brokerage Merrill Lynch in 2008.

Major credit card companies -- Visa and Mastercard -- as well as big banks have agreed to pay more than $7 billion to retailers to compensate for alleged price fixing of credit card fees. Some retailers think the settlement does not go far enough to protect retailers and consumers.

There's a new settlement related to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. It's about a money manager named Ezra Merkin, who has agreed to pay more than $400 million dollars to his former customers who lost billions when he invested their money with Madoff.