It’s not every day that a day trader takes legal action against a brokerage – but that’s exactly what a junior trader from France, Harouna Traore, is doing.
Traore made an initial deposit of €20,000 into his account to try out a training and simulation platform at the British firm Valbury Capital, but from this point on the detail of what actually occurred gets a little blurry.
From various sources it seems that Traore then suffered a bit of a ‘roller coaster experience’ as he initially lost €1m in what he believed to be his practice account to trade equity futures. Undeterred, Traore tried to recoup his loss and succeeded in bringing his account back up to a €10m profit.
On contacting Valbury to discuss the situation they argued that he had breached his contract and trading limits and voided and cancelled all his holdings. Not one to take matters lying down, Traore filed a writ of summons to claim back his ‘winnings’.
The matter, which the FT politely calls a ‘mix up’, is now in the hands of lawyers who seldom lose their positions whatever the outcome for their client.
https://www.ft.com/content/46eff974-7470-11e8-b6ad-3823e4384287