The National Futures Association (NFA), the organization overseeing the US derivatives industry, has slapped a $700,000 fine on GAIN Capital Group LLC, an operator of two retail forex brokerage brands.
Announced on Thursday, the penalty came for multiple compliance violations by Forex.com, which is one of GAIN Capital's brands. It happened after a system malfunction on the Forex.com trading platform from about 2:55 pm on 31 March 2021 to about 1:00 am on 1 April 2021. Customers of the platform at the time could execute stop and limit orders in 14 currency pairs at prices, but the platform did not show the current published price.
GAIN incurred a loss of about $3 million until the malfunction persisted. Additionally, GAIN's CEO, Alexander Bobinski, approved the negative adjustment of the accounts of 17 customers by about $2.84 million and the positive adjustment of 33 customer accounts by about $35,000.
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Many Violations
The decision by the NFA's Business Conduct Committee (BCC) was issued after GAIN and Bobinski submitted a settlement offer. However, the firm and the principal neither admitted nor denied the allegations of the complaint.
The self-regulatory committee blamed the company for violating compliance rules by improperly adjusting customer accounts and for improper treatment of customers affected by the system malfunction and account adjustments. Furthermore, the company violated regulatory rules by submitting inaccurate and incomplete information to NFA.
Both GAIN and Bobinski were held for supervisory failures.
Forex.com is one of the few retail forex trading platforms operating in the United States. Its operator, GAIN Capital, which also operates City Index, was acquired by the StoneX Group (previously INTL FCStone) in 2020 for $236 million.
Meanwhile, Forex.com is expanding its geographical reach. Last year, it entered the Spanish-speaking Latin American markets, offering forex and contracts for differences (CFDs) trading services with a Cayman Islands license.
