Investors and holders of securities are often involved in class actions against stock promoters or investment promoters of certain classes of suspect securities. Class actions are not well-suited for the remedies available to investors who have been subject to stock broker abuses, stock broker fraud, and stock broker breaches of fiduciary duties, malfeasance and lack of diligence. The overwhelming number of these wrongs can and should be remedied in the arbitration proceedings available for individuals, and are not well-suited to class actions. That's not to say class actions don't exist in fact class actions are very common in the securities industries for certain classes.

A class is a group of individuals who share a common legal standing as the aggrieved parties. By example, stockbrokers who have been denied equal pay, employees of brokerage houses who have been denied equal access to promotions, and groups of security purchasers by virtue of their commonality share a claim as claimants in a class-action. If you, as an individual investor, have been wronged by a stockbroker, financial advisor, or professional financial advisor your most direct remedy is to file an action for arbitration. As an individual I would discourage you from seeking redress as a class member in a class-action lawsuit. Class actions take years to resolve. Class actions often bankrupt or destroy the payor. Class actions are often feeding frenzies for law firms to generate enormous billable hours and are paid handsomely for representing classes, leaving very little money for the individual class member. You may however have status as a class member for lawsuits against brokerage firms who are in fact wrongdoers and promoting pools of stock of which you may be a member by virtue of having invested in a mutual fund or investment group.

If you can individuate yourself out of the group you will most likely obtain a quicker and more financially sufficient recovery as a litigant in arbitration against your stockbroker, financial advisor and the stock brokerage firm.