Traders, who became victims of negative WTI oil prices in April 2020, lost the court and could not achieve compensation from one of the structures of the Moscow Exchange, RIA Novosti reports.
The decision on the collective claim of the victims of the victims was made by the ninth arbitration court of appeal. He confirmed the decision of the court of subordinate instance – the Moscow Arbitration Court, made in August.
The plaintiffs were 140 traders, the defendant – the National Curving Center (the structure belonging to the Moscow Exchange group and responsible for the accounting of the transactions performed).
The claim was indicated by the requirement to recognize the invalid transactions to close futures contracts for WTI oil and return funds written off from their brokerage accounts – in the amount of about 280 million rubles.
The position of the plaintiffs was built on the fact that they were introduced by the defendant for misleading relative to the basic asset and contract parameters. So, they believed that the minimum contract price is 0.01 dollars, and the price cannot go to negative values. Because of this, the cause of their losses they consider “Errors of the Exchange Industry”.
The representative of the NCC in turn stated that the actions of the Clearing Center and the Excience corresponded to the legislation and rules of the trading platform, and the expiration challenged by the plaintiffs is not a transaction criterion.
On April 20, 2020, the price of May futures on the Barrel of WTI oil bargaining on the American Nymex Stock Exchange dropped to minus 40 dollars. The contract also traded “Mirror” on several other world stock exchanges, including Moscow.
The site management determined as a price expiration (contract execution) minus 37.63 dollars. At the same time, the conclusion of new transactions was suspended at 8.84 dollars per barrel. The victims estimated their total losses in a billion rubles.