Russian FX peculiarities: Broker-Garant to get back confiscated computer equipment
Arbitration court rules that police should return 70 pieces of computer equipment to the company.
Russia’s Forex law is a newbie – it was signed by the president in the end of 2014 and ever since little progress has been made as to its application. For one thing, the list of FX firms with Forex dealer licenses currently comprises only six entities.
The complexity and novelty of the Forex regulation in the Russian Federation, as well as the peculiarities of the FX industry itself are amid the reasons for persisting confusion when it comes to any matters related to this sector. It is still compared to gambling.
There is nothing astonishing then that the police in the town of Tuymazy, Bashkiria, also got involved into a situation where it had to discern trading in the FX market from gambling. When it had to prove it had acted against illegal gambling activities, it failed.
An arbitration court in Bashkiria has finalized the first stage of a dispute between Broker-Garant, a company claiming to provide OTC Forex trading services in Tuymazy, and the local police. According to a report in Russia’s “Kommersant”, the police was ordered to return 70 pieces of computer equipment to the company which were confiscated in a police raid of its premises in March last year.
The police had suspected that the firm is illegally providing gambling services, but could not prove that the confiscated equipment was used for gambling.
The company shelved its operations following the raid, referring to losses incurred.
The independent experts, having reviewed the confiscated software and hardware, concluded that it contains no elements of gaming/gambling combinations. However, the trading terminal in question, named “Holytrade” (see picture) indeed resembles a gaming machine.
The big question is then, did the clients of Broker-Garant actually trade on the FX market? If they did, then the company should not be accused of illegally providing gambling services. However, the matter to consider in such a case is whether the company is licensed to provide FX services in Russia. The list of Forex dealers authorized by the Central Bank of Russia does not include the name of “Broker-Garant”.
