Dispute settlement
Hi all, with this post I would like to close the dispute as Resolved by mutual agreement between TenkoFX and the client.
Piotr, will confirm this in consequent posts. Below you will find the initial correspondence.
The whole chain of negotiations is not included.
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Dear Piotr,
thank you one more time for your willingness to engage in a constructive dialog.
I will start with addressing the financial aspect of the dispute in the first place, as it is the core of the problem, and then proceed to settlement proposal.
My objective is to convince you that the company did not take any discretional actions that targeted you specifically and that there was a real force major situation.
I hope this will help me alleviate negative bias, which you might have a result of miscommunication and look at my arguments in a neutral manner.
You have executed 3 USDRUB transactions, 2 of which have caused the spat.
Transaction #1 - opened on 14.08.2014 and closed on the 12.12.2014. – No Dispute
Transaction #2 – Opened on the 12.12.2014, closed on 16.12.2014 - Dispute
Transaction #3 – Opened on the 16.12.2014, closed on 16.12.2014 - Dispute
First, let us come to a common point on what dates do we consider the market to be shut.
I do see that you've given a number of broker examples, that closed the market later than we did. I trust you that was indeed the case. However, market collapse doesn't occur 2-3 days after the abrupt move.
Abrupt move as such signifies the collapse, not the aftermath. What are the biggest/extreme price moving days of USDRUB during the current crisis? It is the 15th, 16th and 17th of December 2014.
If the 15th was Rubles cardiac arrest, the 16th was the day of clinical death. From 17th to 19th some shaky resurrection signs.
Consequent recovery took place later on MICEX where Central Bank acted as market marker to Russian corporates primarily (banks were restricted to take speculative positions), i.e. brokers simply couldn’t have had access to that liquidity. How did other brokers that you mention manage to run USDRUB pricing? I can only guess here. Either they have access to some magic liquidity providers or they do market marking on this pair themselves (at least for the period of concern).
Now let us come back to the disputed 2 trades.
In my opinion, USDRUB trading should have been closed to you in a way 100% identical as it is done between the broker and liquidity provider.
i.e. when you enter a trade (especially on collapsing market) you should run full risks of position closing or inability to close.
Let me emphasize that “close only” mode that you suggest is impossible when NO executable price is available.
Therefore, I think trading activity on all accounts holding USDRUB positions should have been completely frozen on the 15th of December until the time executable price from the liquidity provider became available.
In this case all these disputes that we are having with you simply wouldn't exist. You would have closed the transaction #2 somewhere after the 22nd of December.
Which until today (23/04/2015) would have given you either max. loss of approx. 900 EUR or max. profit of 1500 EUR, depending on the day you might have chosen to close it.
Transaction #3 would not have existed at all.
I suggest the following: since we have identified the problem before you've closed the 3rd transaction, had we acted as I suggest above the 3rd transaction would have resulted either in max. loss of approx. 2000 EUR or less (period: 22/12/14 to 23/04/15). In best case scenario you could have closed it somewhere at break even or small loss, if closed between 13.01.15 - 12.02.15.
The paradox of all the public spat is that had we not intervened and acted as we had to, there is big change that the net result of the disputed transactions would have been close to zero, i.e. similar to trade cancellation that occurred. That is why the cancellation of these 2 potentially symmetric (given right actions) trades have been considered as fair and balanced.
We have a saying that “when you intervene with good intention, there is a big risk it will not be appreciated”, i.e. intentions, end results, and perceptions can be very different.
In any case, understanding that time and effort has been spent on this issue we need to find a motivating settlement to you and the company.
Proposal:
Note: We (company and the client) decided not to disclose the settlement terms, because they might be incorrectly understood and misinterpreted. The settlement terms have been accepted by both parties as satisfactory.