I have both mediated and arbitrated disputes between customers and brokers, and have also worked with disputes involving securities fraud under state and federal statutes, transaction characterization, option and warrant contracts, and a variety of defenses. These have involved small and large investors, with or without due diligence investigations by the investor, and various claims of nondisclosure or providing misleading information.
The brokerage claims have spanned the range of suitability and disclosure issues (including risk exposures and tax ramifications), failure to follow directions, failure to follow a marketed investment model, failure to explain the nature of the investment, churning, handling of proxy materials, processing of options, stop loss orders, variable annuities, claims arising from the technology bubble and crash and the more recent downturn, etc. Some disputes raise issues of overlapping relationships between the parties involving both traditional broker-customer dealings and other business transactions.
While most of the work has involved private claims, I have also handled SEC enforcement actions, for insider trading for example.