Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas

USA Today
July 14, 2010

A: Shares of BP have lost about half their value since the disaster in the Gulf began. Adding even more pain is the fact BP suspended its dividend due to mounting pressure over the catastrophe. That means investors who were counting on the steady cash payments from the company are not only seeing the value of their holdings plummet, but are losing out on precious income.

Due to these huge risks, I've reminded investors of the dangers of jumping into BP stock, even though the shares appear cheap. And even in May, during the early days of the spill, I cautioned investors who were in the stock to consider selling at least part of their BP holdings.

If you owned the stock before the crisis, it's understandable you'd be pretty irritated by the developments. And when investors are upset, they often look to securities class-action lawsuits for a venue for remediation. I'll be upfront with you. Such suits rarely pay off very well for investors. Historically, such suits have returned only five to 20 cents for every dollar lost. And that's if you get anything, which shareholders usually don't.

Even so, a nickel is better than nothing. If you're interested in tracking the progress of any securities class-action suits against BP, you should get to know the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse.

This site keeps close tabs on what securities class-action suits have been filed and contains information on how to join suits if they exist. Just click on the Search button the right-hand side of the screen and enter the company's stock symbol in the stock symbol space.

The next screen will show you all the suits that have been filed against the company. And in the case of BP, there was a class-action suit filed on May 21, 2010.

Read more:http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2010-07-01-bp-class-action_N.htm