Business groups routinely criticize the number of lawsuits they face but a new study shows that things may be getting better. The stock market was much less volatile last year than it has been in recent years and a new study shows that there were fewer securities class-action lawsuits, reports the Los Angeles Times.

There were only 176 such suits last year, a drop of 17 percent and the lowest number since 1997.

The findings are good news for American businesses and investors, Stanford University’s Joseph Grundfest tells the paper. But he cautioned that “we won’t know for another two or three years” whether the decline will become a trend.

More significantly, the alleged losses dropped dramatically. The 2004 total was $147 billion but in 2005 it was only $99 million.

Two other factors in the drop were the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley and the decision of some institutional investors to avoid class action lawsuits and go to court themselves.