Forex trader Justin LeBlanc, who has been accused of unfairly benefiting from a mistake while placing an order on FOREX.com, a platform run by GAIN Capital, has issued a response to the allegations made against him.
On July 10, 2023, LeBlanc submitted a response to the New York Southern District Court, arguing that GAIN Capital’s claims against him are baseless.
This case involves a trading session on April 1, 2021, where LeBlanc made orders and trades for currency using GAIN’s online trading platform. According to the complaint, after 184 trades in just one hour, LeBlanc made $712,135.90. However, the complaint alleges that the prices on GAIN’s platform became outdated and remained stuck. And that LeBlanc should have been aware of this and stopped trading voluntarily.
In essence, the plaintiff wants to hold LeBlanc accountable for accepting and processing 184 trades on April 1, 2021. And to take back all the profits he made from those trades.
The defendant argues that this case should have been started within one year of the issue arising, as stated in the customer agreement he signed with GAIN. GAIN’s claims are all based on LeBlanc’s trading during a specific hour on April 1, 2021. Therefore, to be considered timely, the plaintiff should have filed their claims by April 1, 2022. However, GAIN filed this lawsuit on May 2, 2023, which is more than 13 months too late. As a result, the entire complaint must be dismissed.
The defendant argues that GAIN’s claims are also invalid on their own.
Validity of Accusation Against Mr. LeBlanc Regarding Bid Prices and Agreement Anticipation
According to Section 3.4 of the Agreement, it is stated that although a specific exchange rate is given when certain types of orders are made, limit orders may be fulfilled at significantly different exchange rates. Additionally, Section 4.1 states that FOREX.com does not guarantee that bid and ask prices reflect the current prevalent prices.
Therefore, the accusation that Mr. LeBlanc violated the agreement by not being questioned about his bid prices. Which were accepted by GAIN at non-prevalent rates, is not valid because the Agreement actually anticipated this kind of behavior.
