IC Markets Class Action

IC Markets Class Action

Register below

On 6 February 2024, Piper Alderman filed a Class Action in the Federal Court of Australia against International Capital Markets Limited (IC Markets). On 2 August 2024, Justice O’Bryan of the Federal Court of Australia made Orders which, amongst other things, consolidated the class action filed by Piper Alderman with a substantially similar class action filed by Echo Law on behalf of Mr Nathaniel Bain.

The consolidated class action is Bain and Anor v International Capital Markets Pty Ltd (VID1088/2023) and alleges that ‘contracts for difference’ (CFDs) were highly risky and unsuitable financial products, and that IC Markets engaged in misleading, deceptive and unconscionable conduct in the supply of CFDs to retail investors. The consolidated class action also advances claims against IC Markets’ founder, Mr Andrew Budzinski.

Echo Law and Piper Alderman and will be running the consolidated class action together, with Echo Law as the ‘solicitors on the record’ and Piper Alderman as Echo’s ‘agent’.

If you have suffered loss or damage as a result of acquiring CFDs with IC Markets, you may register your interest on the website of Echo Law (you may access the website by using this link: IC Markets Class Action: Registration page (Echo Law), or by copying the following address: https://www.echolaw.com.au/ic-markets).

It will not cost anything to register, and you will never be ‘out of pocket’ as a result of participating in this class action.

If you have any questions, please contact Echo Law by email at ‘[email protected]’.

FAQs:

1. 1. A CFD is a ‘leveraged’ financial product that enables investors to take a position on the movement of an underlying asset – such as a share, a share price index, a commodity, a currency or even a crypto currency – without owning the asset itself. CFDs are often highly leveraged, with an investor paying only a fraction of what the underlying asset is worth and betting on whether the asset will increase or decrease in value.
   2. Everyday Australian investors have collectively lost hundreds of millions of dollars trading controversial financial products called CFDs.
   3. CFDs are legal in Australia but have been banned in some other countries with the Federal Court of Australia describing these products as “financial heroin hits” in the hands of unsophisticated retail investors.
   4. In March 2021, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) imposed strict new conditions on CFDs by way of Product Intervention Order in order to protect inexperienced investors, following findings from their reviews that 72 per cent of retail clients who traded CFDs lost money.  Prior to this intervention, an investor’s losses could far exceed the amount of their initial investment due to the high leverage ratios offered for the CFDs.
   5. In recent years, ASIC has also successfully brought proceedings for breach of the Corporations Act against a number of CFD licensees operating in Australia, with penalties awarded in excess of $75m.