Compensation from broker for Russian CFD (contract for difference)

The UK Financial Ombudsman has ordered Interactive Brokers (IB) to compensate an investor that invested in a Russian CFD (contract for difference). In this case the CFD was for 10.000 Sberbank ordinary shares. Interactive Brokers refused to close the position because they could not trade the underlying Sberbank shares Interactive Brokers had bought to cover the CFD contract. From March 2022 onwards, IB raised the margin required for the position to 100%. By August 2024 the interest alone charged on the position had amounted to around USD $12,000.  The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) introduced a margin close-out rule in 2018 that states that CFD providers have to close positions once the net asset value in the investor's account drops to 50% of the required margin. The Financial Ombudsman ruled that Interactive Brokers was required to stop charging interest and other charges on the CFD position once they had to close the position on the basis of the ESMA 50% margin...

Forced conversion depositary shares of Ozon

Yesterday was the first day of trading of Ozon on the Moscow stock exchange after the process of redomiciliation from Cyprus to the Russian Federation was completed. 

The 11th of November 2025 was also the day that Reestr-Proton, the registrar for Ozon, published the procedure for the forced conversion of depositary shares into local ordinary shares. This information can be found here: https://reestr-proton.ru/for_shareholders 

EAHCISS is contemplating hosting a webinar to explain the process of forced conversion of Ozon depositary shares. 

It is well possible that shareholders that do not apply for forced conversion may not have the chance to obtain ordinary shares of Ozon afterwards and that BNY will liquidate the Ozon shares that underly the depositary shares if they see a possibility to do so. Unfortunately voluntary conversion of depositary shares of Ozon has, in practice, not been possible due to a global lock that was placed on the depositary shares by the DTC in October 2024, which made it impossible to surrender depositary shares to BNY for conversion.