Trader's Tutive Protection
It is a consumer who habitually makes investments in the foreign exchange market through purchase and sale orders.
The concept of consumer must be interpreted restrictively, taking into account only the position of the person with respect to a specific contract, and not considering the subjective situation of said person.
The usual activity of making investments in the foreign exchange market executing purchase and sale orders of a very considerable amount, personally and directly, is protected by European consumer legislation.
The Brussels Regulation I bis classifies retail investors in the foreign exchange market as consumers.
It is possible to claim in your own country from a foreign brokerage agency, the payment of the difference between the benefit that you would have obtained if the broker had not taken a few seconds to execute the online order to purchase foreign currency.
It can be about operations carried out by lots of 100,000 USD, which the borker lent to the consumer, and that reimburses him when closing the position, with the product of the sale of currencies.
If one of these operations is carried out with a 16-second delay and causes losses of USD 9,000 to the consumer, the latter may claim the difference before the court of his domicile, from the foreign borker.
Circumstances such as the value of the operations, the importance of the risks of economic losses involved in signing brokerage contracts with a broker, or the experience and eventual knowledge of financial instruments, as well as the active behavior of the consumer, lack legal relevance. in carrying out the aforementioned operations.
The objective nature of the concept of consumer is emphasized, since only the professional activity, or not, will determine the application of the consumer protection rules contractual party. Or what is the same, the only accepted premise is that the broker is professional.
The greatest possible legal certainty is guaranteed, preventing circumstances such as the frequency or habituality in carrying out certain investment economic operations, from transmuting the activity from private to professional. Neither the amounts, nor the risk, nor the habituality, nor the previous sophisticated knowledge of the consumer, nor that he performs the operations personally are not taken into account. The concept of consumer is objective, defining itself in opposition to that of professional. It is only necessary to abide by whether the contract is intended to satisfy, or not, personal needs. The object of the contract with the broker must be a use unrelated to the professional activity that the consumer may have.