It's been over a year since the SNB cap pull but clients of brokers are still fighting, and winning

New Zealand's financial complaints service, the FSCL, has finally seen the light and reversed a recommendation it was going to make in favour of CMC Markets NZ Ltd over losses incurred by customers over the SNB event.

It transpired that the FSCL were going to uphold CMC NZ's reasons why it adjusted trades after the event, even though the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service had issued guidance in favour of customer complaints against CMC UK over the same reasons. It took repeated pressure from customers, with the help of ForexLive and other CMC UK clients to get the FSCL to investigate the UK decision and thus re-think their ruling.

But that's not all. We've learned that the FSCL gave CMC NZ the heads up that they were going to alter their decision, potentially leaving clients hugely disadvantaged in settlement talks with CMC NZ. The reasoning behind that decision was to give CMC NZ time to reach a settlement deal with customers and thus avoid any official FSCL rulings. CMC NZ then contacted customers offering to reverse the price changes and credit back accounts but we've been told that they offered a lower compensation settlement than the one the FSCL advised could be in any final recommendation. The news of the FSCL heads up came too late for some CMC NZ clients who had already accepted these final settlement terms with CMC NZ, and had withdrawn their complaints to the FSCL as part of the CMC NZ settlement conditions.

ForexLive has been in close communication with two such customers who have now benefitted from the change in the FSCL decision. One client had agreed to the CMC NZ settlement before knowing the FSCL news and thus missed out on a better settlement, and one, Alok Limbachia, decided to let the case run its course.

Late last week Alok received notice that the FSCL had changed their original recommendation to rule in his favour, and made a recommendation that CMC NZ should reverse the adjusted trades on his account, and credit his account with NZD$500 compensation and NZD$24 interest.

Naturally there's been a lot of anger over the FSCL's decision to give CMC NZ the heads up while keeping those with cases in the dark.

The one thing this case highlights is the disparity and lack of communication between different regions regulatory bodies. The SNB mess was a global event yet it took a lot of pushing by CMC NZ customers before the FSCL finally looked into the details of the CMC UK case. To aid that there has been a fantastic response from the forex community and particularly Max from @igeurchfloss who has been coordinating the fight against customer's IG losses and who, in liaising with us, put CMC UK customers together with CMC NZ customers, so that information could be passed about the UK case, resulting in the FSCL's reversal.

The fight still goes on for many other people affected by SNB losses and we'll continue to strive to help those get a fair deal when it's due.

This is also a reminder that the most important part of trading is picking and using a broker you can trust and rely upon. We have put together a broker listing that we feel offers readers the best choices in brokers. Brokers such as Dukascopy have been around for a long time, and for good reason.

Feel free to ask us or the rest of the readership any questions you have about choosing a broker.