Lawyers say compensation may be an uphill task for investors because of a lack of judicial precedent and broader institutional difficulties
Mahesh Chauhan* was betting that the markets would fall after the Budget. He built his positions accordingly. All he could do was watch when the S&P BSE Sensex rose over 2,000 points instead. There was a technical glitch at his discount brokerage. He had no way to cut his losses. And he’s been fighting for compensation since.
Somewhere along the way, he realised that two clauses on a form he signed absolve the broker and the stock exchange of any liability in the event of a technical glitch. This may also affect any investor who seeks compensation for a subsequent outage at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on February 24. It may also absolve HDFC Securities and Zerodha Broking, which reportedly faced technical issues on Monday, March 1. Upstox (RKSV Securities) users had faced issues on February 1.
Lawyers say compensation may be an uphill task for investors because of a lack of judicial precedent and broader institutional difficulties as snags become increasingly common.
Investor compensation can be a tough task in terms of financial liability for stock exchanges and brokerages as the value of securities changing hands often runs into trillions, suggested Sandeep Parekh, managing partner of Finsec Law Advisors and former executive director at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
"The system will collapse," he said.
This may be the reason that Sebi’s master circular for stock brokers excludes claims against brokers and exchanges for outages, he added.
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