BG&G Blog

A sudden stock drop after earnings does not, by itself, prove securities fraud. A potential claim usually requires evidence that the company made a materially false or misleading statement or omitted material information, acted with the required intent, and caused investors to lose money when the truth reached the market. Selling your shares does not automatically prevent participation. Missing the 60-day Lead Plaintiff deadline usually affects only your opportunity to seek the leadership role, not your ability to remain an eligible class member or submit a later settlement claim.

Autopilot is an app that automatically copies the trades of politicians, hedge fund managers, and other well-known investors into your own brokerage account. But those trades aren’t really “real time,” the company behind the app has legal duties as a registered investment adviser, and the way it’s marketed matters. Those are the exact kinds of issues that have led to securities lawsuits against other automated investing platforms before.

Payments from the $626 million Flint water crisis settlement are actively being distributed in 2026. Property damage payments began in late 2025, adult injury payments began in June 2026, and a new batch covering teen claimants and businesses was released on July 23, 2026. More than 12,500 awards have been issued to date.

A consumer class action is a lawsuit brought by a large group of people who suffered the same harm — typically financial or related to a defective or mislabeled product — and who join together to hold a company accountable. A product liability lawsuit is a claim brought by an individual (or a small group) who was physically injured by a dangerous or defective product. The two can overlap, but they serve different purposes and work very differently. Here’s what you need to know.

A securities investigation is a law firm’s private inquiry into whether a case exists. A filed lawsuit is a formal legal proceeding in federal court. They are not the same thing — and confusing the two can cause investors to miss critical deadlines or wait passively for a recovery that may never come.

If a company you invested in committed securities fraud, you may assume the claim only applies to shares you held in a regular brokerage account. Many investors do. But if those same shares were held inside a retirement account — an IRA, a Roth IRA, a 401(k) — you likely still have the right to recover your losses. The type of account doesn’t determine whether fraud occurred or whether you were harmed by it.

A Lead Plaintiff is the investor appointed by the court to represent all other class members in a securities class action lawsuit. Think of it as being the captain of the team — you do not have to do the legal heavy lifting yourself, but you have a real say in how the case is handled and an opportunity to maximize the recovery for every investor involved.

Stock buybacks are legal and common — they’re protected by an SEC safe harbor when done correctly. But that safe harbor has limits. When a company repurchases its own stock while insiders possess material non-public information, or while the company is making misleading statements to the market, the buyback itself can become grounds for a securities fraud case.

There’s no blanket rule that crypto is or isn’t a security. Courts and regulators apply the decades-old Howey test on a case-by-case basis, asking whether a digital asset was sold as part of an investment contract. As of March 2026, the SEC has issued new interpretive guidance sorting crypto assets into categories — but the underlying legal test, and the risk of fraud claims for investors, hasn’t gone away.