Bank holding company Washington Mutual Inc. has agreed to a settlement with some creditors involved in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case and has filed a new reorganization plan.

Washington Mutual said in a statement late Monday that the settlement will allow it to distribute more than $7 billion to its creditors. The settlement must still be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

"The comprehensive settlement announced today represents a fair and reasonable recovery for the thousands of equity holders of the company who have been following this case closely for three years," Michael Willingham, chairman of the committee of equity security holders appointed in the company's Chapter 11 proceedings.

Washington Mutual's bankruptcy case is three years old and its reorganization plans have twice been rejected by Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary Walrath. The company is hoping to exit bankruptcy protection by the end of February. It has a hearing scheduled for Jan. 11, 2012 in which the bankruptcy court will consider approval of the reorganization plan's disclosure statement. The company also plans to ask the bankruptcy court for a mid-February hearing to confirm its reorganization plan.

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether pharmaceutical sales representatives can bill their employers for overtime, a case that could affect the pay of tens of thousands of people.

The court said Monday that it will review a federal appeals court ruling that held the sales reps do not qualify for overtime under federal labor law. Other appeals courts have ruled differently and the pharmaceutical industry joined in the call for Supreme Court review.

The sales reps meet with physicians in the hope that doctors will prescribe one company's medicine over another's. Two salesmen who once worked for drug maker GlaxoSmithKline filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that they were not paid for the 10 to 20 hours they worked each week on average outside the normal business day.

A Louisiana company has pleaded guilty to a charge it illegally discharged more than 1 million gallons of oily wastewater into the Harvey Canal.

Oakmont Environmental Inc. of Harvey faces a $500,000 fine following its guilty plea Wednesday to violating the Clean Water Act.

Clifton Carr, a 62-year-old Amite resident who was the operator of the company's waste treatment facility, also pleaded guilty Wednesday to a related charge.

Federal prosecutors say Oakmont had a permit to discharge wastewater into a Jefferson Parish sewerage treatment plant after it had been pretreated.

But the company allegedly discharged the wastewater directly into the canal without separating the oil from the water.

Prosecutors said 1.2 million gallons of oily wastewater was discharged into the canal between September 2007 and March 2008.

A Russian court on Friday rejected a $16 billion claim against BP PLC filed by an obscure minority shareholder in BP's Russian venture, TNK-BP.

The court victory may have softened the blow that BP sustained when Rosneft dropped it as a partner in developing Russia's untapped Arctic oil and gas riches. The multibillion dollar deal broke down after TNK-BP's Russian billionaire shareholders blocked it, claiming that BP should be pursuing it through TNK-BP.

The Arbitration Court in the Tyumen region in Siberia on Friday dismissed two motions filed by a group of minority shareholders led by Andrei Prokhorov, who owns 0.0000106 percent in TNK-BP. The lawsuits are a $13 billion claim against BP and a $2.8 billion suit against two BP-nominated directors on TNK-BP's board.

Prokhorov and other shareholders claimed that BP and its representatives damaged TNK-BP's interests by failing to include the Russian venture in the Arctic deal with Rosneft.

BP's Russian partners in TNK-BP have denied any connection to the minority shareholder's suit. The claim was the reason why Russian police raided BP's office in August, which happened just days after Rosneft teamed up with ExxonMobil to develop the Arctic.

Union Bank, part of Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc , agreed to pay $35 million to settle the first class-action lawsuit arising from nationwide litigation accusing lenders of charging excessive overdraft fees.

The litigation consolidates lawsuits filed against more than two dozen U.S., Canadian and European lenders such as JPMorgan Chase & Co , Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co .

It accuses lenders of routinely processing transactions from largest to smallest rather than in chronological order. This can cause account balances to fall more quickly, and overdraft fees, typically $25 or $35, to pile up faster.

A notice of the Union Bank settlement was filed on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in Miami. The settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King, who oversees the litigation.

King granted class certification in the Union Bank case in July. That meant that customers, estimated in the tens of thousands, could sue the San Francisco-based bank as a group.

SearchMedia Holdings Limited, one of China's leading nationwide multi-platform media companies, today announced that it reached a tentative partial settlement agreement for a securities class action lawsuit pending against the Company and a number of its current and former directors, officers and employees.

The securities class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Murdeshwar v. SearchMedia Holdings Limited, et al., Case no. 1:11-cv-20549-KMW) against the Company and certain of its current and former officers and directors in relation to various disclosures regarding the Company's acquisition of SearchMedia International Ltd. and the financial condition of that company.

The partial settlement agreement is made on behalf of the defendants who served as directors and officers of Ideation Acquisition Corp. (the "Settling Defendants") without any admission of wrongdoing on the part of the Settling Defendants and provides for a settlement fund of $2.75 million, which the Company expects to be entirely funded by its insurance carriers. The partial settlement agreement remains subject to court approval and certain other conditions including execution of a stipulation of settlement, notice to class members, and an opportunity for class members to object or opt out of the settlement.

The securities class action lawsuit remains pending against other defendants who reside in China and who have not been served with the complaint and summons.