• Employee Retirement Income Insurance Act. Stock reduction litigation is a lawsuit brought against corporate directors, officers, and trustees of corporate 401(k) plans. Such litigation, usually in the form of a class action lawsuit, occurs when the market price of a company’s stock plummets and, as a result, employees’ 401(k) plan owners lose significant amounts of money because they own large sums. company shares in their individual accounts. In these lawsuits, plaintiff employees allege that the directors and officers were trustees of 401(k) plans and that the conduct governing the administration of such plans is therefore governed by the provisions contained in the Employee Retirement Security Act (ERISA). Among the most common allegations of negligence made in these lawsuits are: (1) willfully disclosing false and misleading information about a company’s finances, which induces employees to buy shares in the company; (2) failure to disclose material information about the company, its financial condition and results of operations in statements to the general public, shareholders or employees; (3) not disclosing such information to other plan trustees (eg, investment advisors and brokers) who were responsible for investing plan assets; and (4) failure to correct misleading statements made by other plan officers and proxies and failure to properly monitor wrongdoing by other plan proxies.