Miffed with MCX’s decision to settle its April crude futures contract with negative pricing for the first time in the history of commodity trading, leading broking firms, including Motilal Oswal Financial Services and Religare Securities, have filed writ petitions in High Courts against the exchange and against market regulator SEBI.
MCX, which initially announced a provisional settlement price of ₹1 for the crude oil futures contract that expired on April 20, later calculated a price of (-)₹2,884 per barrel, leading to investors losing about ₹435 crore.
The exchange did not heed pleas by brokers to delay the settlement process as most of the investors could not be reached to recover funds due to the ongoing lockdown, said a broker.
