HSBC Holdings Plc could announce thousands of job cuts at a strategy day next week, Sky News reported on Monday, part of chief executive Stuart Gulliver’s overhaul of Europe’s biggest bank.

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L) was on Monday ordered to face three U.S. lawsuits accusing it of breaching its duties as a trustee overseeing residential mortgage-backed securities that suffered more than $34 billion of losses in the global financial crisis.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan said the plaintiff investors, including funds from BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), Allianz SE’s (ALVG.DE) Pacific Investment Management Co and TIAA-CREF, could pursue claims accusing HSBC of breach of contract, and concealing known defects in mortgage loans backing 283 trusts.

“Based on plaintiffs’ detailed allegations, it is indeed plausible to infer that HSBC had actual knowledge of breaches in representations and warranties in the specific loans at issue,” Scheindlin wrote in a 53-page decision. “How HSBC gained this actual knowledge, or whether in fact it had actual knowledge, may be determined through discovery.”

Read on.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White on Tuesday, criticizing White’s leadership as “extremely disappointing,” and accusing the regulator of “misleading” her about a rule on CEO pay.

Warren said White has broken multiple promises to impose tougher penalties against corporate wrongdoers that White made to senators during her 2013 confirmation process.

“You have now been SEC Chair for over two years, and to date, your leadership of the Commission has been extremely disappointing,” Warren wrote. “I am disappointed by the significant gap between the promises you made during and shortly after your confirmation and your performance as SEC Chair.”

Read on.

For the first time in the memory of anyone who has just awoken from a 20 year coma in the past few months, the US Senate is coming back from a grueling week-long paid vacation early to try to meet a legislative deadline it has known about for years. Some key provisions of the Patriot Act expire at midnight if they are not extended or amended in such a way as to pass before that time.

The sections involved include key provisions dealing with the controversial mass accumulation of data concerning basically all telephone calls made in the US. This mass surveillance, made public famously by Edward Snowden, has become an extremely controversial issue for many, both within and outside of government, as a possible violation of our civil liberties and Constitutional rights under the 4th Amendment, which deals with unreasonable searches and seizures.

When the Patriot Act was passed…