A woman invested in binary options on a Forex platform based on misrepresentations made to her, inter alia, regarding the identity of the person through whom she invested. However, she continued to invest even after learning of the misrepresentations and lost over a million US dollars.
The Court held that the woman had 50% contributory fault and therefore reduced the compensation due to her. Fraud is misrepresentation, when the representor has a lack of belief in its truth, intent that the recipient of the representation be deceived by the representation and financial damage to the recipient. However, in a situation where the recipient had contributory negligence to the damage, he may receive only reduced compensation if no actual additional profit was gained by the representator. Here, the woman was presented with misrepresentations regarding the risk of her investment, regarding the returns expected by her, regarding the identity of the interests between her and the party investing on her behalf and she suffered financial damage. However, the woman continued to invest even after learning of the misrepresentations and thus it was held that she bears contributory fault at the rate of 50% and her damages would be reduced by such percentage.