Speculating in futures lost more than two million yuan in 3 years, and the "post-60s" investors took the futures company to court, and the judgment came

With an investment of more than 4.3 million yuan and a loss of more than 2 million yuan in futures, "post-60s" investors took the futures company to court.

Recently, a document disclosed by the judgment document network shows that the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court of Guangdong Province (hereinafter referred to as the "Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court") rendered a first-instance judgment on the futures trading dispute between Yang Mouyan and Huatai Futures Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huatai Futures") and other institutions, and Yang Mouyan's claim that Huatai Futures and Huatai Securities Suqian Hongzehu Road Securities Business Department (hereinafter referred to as "Huatai Securities Hongzehu Road Business Department") failed to perform its appropriateness obligations and compensate for their investment losses, lacked factual and legal basis, and the court did not support it. Dismissed all of its claims.

The loss in 3 years is more than 2 million yuan

According to the judgment, on May 7, 2018, Yang Mouyan went to the nearest Hongzehu Road business office of Huatai Securities to request futures account opening.

As an ordinary investor, Yang Mouyan filled out the Risk Tolerance Questionnaire, which consisted of 30 multiple-choice questions. The options show that Yang Mouyan is an investor with considerable assets and experience: although the highest education is for high school and below; However, she and her spouse both have stable income jobs, and their average annual income in the past three years is 5-200,000 yuan; Investable assets are 10-1 million yuan; Have obtained one or more securities, futures, fund qualifications, certified public accountant certificates or certified financial analyst certificates; More than 16 financial products were purchased or received financial services in the past year; Have a wealth of knowledge and understanding of securities and futures products and related risks, and tend to make investment decisions on their own; More than two years of investment experience in stocks, funds and other equity products; The investment frequency is high, and the average monthly transaction volume in the active month is 100,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan; Investment period of more than 10 years; The proportion of futures investment is 30%-50%, and the main type of transaction is "speculation".

Subsequently, Yang Mouyan also signed the "Futures Trading Risk Statement", "Ordinary Investor Suitability Management Matching Opinion Notice and Risk Disclosure Confirmation" and other account opening documents. The "Notice of Matching Opinion and Risk Disclosure Confirmation of Suitability Management of Ordinary Investors" states that Yang Mouyan is a C4 risk tolerance investor and is suitable for products or services with R1, R2, R3 and R4 risk levels. Commodity futures in the futures brokerage business belong to R3 level, and financial futures, commodity options, and crude oil futures belong to R4 level.

In the three years from opening an account in May 2018 to April 2021, Yang Mouyan's futures account has been at risk many times and has been liquidated six times. She successively transferred 4.318 million yuan and 1.7964 million yuan. In addition to the handling fee of 407,800 yuan paid to Huatai Futures, the total investment loss was 2,113,900 yuan.

Are adequacy obligations met?

In April 2021, Yang Mouyan complained to the CSRC that the Hongzehu Road Business Department of Huatai Securities did not exercise due diligence in opening a futures account. The Jiangsu Securities Regulatory Bureau collected all the information on its opening of futures accounts, and after review, it was not determined that the Hongzehu Road Business Department of Huatai Securities had any violations or violations in the process of engaging in the business of intermediary introduction of futures.

Because the complaint failed to obtain a satisfactory result, Yang Mouyan sued Huatai Futures and Huatai Securities Hongzehu Road Business Department to the Guangzhou Intermediate Court on the grounds that she had failed to perform her appropriateness management obligations.

Unable to afford the litigation costs, Yang Mouyan only claimed compensation of 1 million yuan for economic losses, including the handling fees charged by Huatai Futures, and the rest was investment losses.

The Guangzhou Intermediate Court held that the focus of the dispute in this case was whether the Hongzehu Road Business Department of Huatai Futures and Huatai Securities had fulfilled their appropriateness obligations.

Yang Mouyan claimed that the Hongzehu Road business department of Huatai Securities did not fully understand its basic information, property status, trading knowledge and experience, and professional skills, but instead assisted in filling in risk assessment information and gave C4 investors who seriously did not match their investment capabilities. Huatai Futures did not warn of trading risks, did not conduct return visit inspections, and did not make reasonable adjustments to the classification of investors.

In this regard, Huatai Futures argued that there was only one fact and reason for Yang's claim, that is, Huatai Futures violated the investor's suitability obligation and caused economic losses to it. According to the process of account opening and trading, Yang Mouyan's claim has no factual and legal basis, and Huatai Futures has fulfilled its obligation of investor suitability. The Hongzehu Road business department of Huatai Securities argued that it was qualified to provide intermediate introduction business for futures companies, and there was no act of "guiding and assisting them in filling in risk assessment information" as Yang Mouyan said.

The court ruled at your own risk

The Guangzhou Intermediate Court emphasized that the performance of the suitability obligation is the main content of "seller's due diligence" and is also the premise and basis for "buyer's own responsibility". From the evidence in the case, it can be concluded that Huatai Securities, as an institution engaged in intermediary business, neither provides futures trading services to Yang Haiyan nor sells futures products, so its status is neither the same as that of a financial service provider, nor a seller or distributor of financial products. In the CSRC's Measures for the Administration of the Suitability of Securities and Futures Investors, securities firms engaged in intermediary introduction business are not required to perform suitability obligations.

At the same time, the Guangzhou Intermediate Court pointed out that the Hongzehu Road Business Department of Huatai Securities was equipped with staff with futures qualifications, publicized the relevant information of the futures intermediate introduction business, and signed relevant documents through the Joy Wealth Connect APP developed by Huatai Securities. In view of Yang Mouyan's failure to provide evidence to prove that the staff of the Hongzehu Road Business Department of Huatai Securities had made false publicity, misleading statements, or promised to guarantee profits and share risks, the Guangzhou Intermediate Court held that her claim lacked factual and legal basis, so it did not support it.

Regarding the question of whether Huatai Futures has fulfilled its appropriateness obligations, the Guangzhou Intermediate Court held that Huatai Futures has formulated a number of systems and business rules, and has established risk assessment and corresponding management systems. Since the investor's information in the risk test is provided by the investor himself, and the financial institution does not and in fact cannot fulfill the obligation to verify the authenticity of the investor's information item by item, the consequences arising from the investor's intentional provision of false information should be borne by the investor. According to Yang Mouyan's self-admission, the fact that a large amount of false information was deliberately provided at risk was established, and caused Huatai Futures to misassess its risk tolerance. You do so at your own risk.

The Guangzhou Intermediate Court also pointed out that the qualification for securities practitioners, futures practitioners and fund qualification examinations is high school or above, and even if Yang Mouyan ticks his education as high school and below, Huatai Futures cannot conclude that there is no aforementioned qualification just because of this.

Finally, the fact that Yang Mouyan signed multiple documents can prove that Huatai Futures has informed him of its earnings, transaction costs and main risk factors, without compromising its right to know.

Based on the above analysis, the Guangzhou Intermediate Court believes that Yang Mouyan's claim is insufficient and does not support it. The judgment dismissed all the claims and bore the litigation costs of 13,800 yuan.

Huatai Futures is a subsidiary of Huatai Securities. As of the end of the first half of 2023, Huatai Futures had net assets of 4.807 billion yuan, operating income of 1.488 billion yuan and net profit of 145 million yuan. According to the consolidated income statement, the net income from futures brokerage fees was 304 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.88%.

Recently, the CSRC has conducted a comprehensive evaluation of futures companies based on their risk management capabilities, combined with the company's ability to serve the real economy, market competitiveness and continuous compliance. Huatai Futures continued its AA rating in the 2023 classification evaluation.