Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Alternative dispute resolution is the independent route for settling a complaint against a broker without going to court. In most regulated markets a firm must first handle the complaint through its own procedure and issue a final response; only then can the case go to the ombudsman or ADR body the firm is signed up to, whose name is normally published in its terms. What these bodies decide is whether the firm applied its own terms and the applicable rules correctly — a disputed slippage, a rejected withdrawal, a closed position. They cannot rewrite terms you accepted or compensate for market losses. Their jurisdiction, deadlines and whether their decision binds the firm vary by regulator, so the scheme rules are worth reading before filing rather than after.