Forex Robot Allegation: Istanbul Appeal Court Ruling 2025/1669

Just after two in the morning, hundreds of trades are opened and closed within two hours on an exotic currency pair whose trading volume has almost dried up. By the morning the account shows a balance of more than 128 thousand dollars; a few days later the same account holds about 24 thousand dollars. According to the brokerage firm, the gain is the product of a "robot software" and may be rejected under the contract. According to the investor, the firm changed the take-profit levels of the profitable trades retroactively and took hold of the balance. The dispute is brought before the courts through an enforcement proceeding and a following action to annul the objection.

In its decision dated 4 December 2025, Docket No. (E.) 2023/1174, Decision No. (K.) 2025/1669, the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal 44th Civil Chamber upheld the first-instance judgment, which found that the use of a robot had not been proven with concrete evidence and that the brokerage firm's revision had no technical basis in the legislation or the contract. It also held that the claim the plaintiff had increased by amendment (ıslah) could not be heard because the one-year period for an action to annul an objection had expired. The appeals of both parties were rejected on the merits by unanimous vote.

🌙 What happened on the night of 23 March 2020?

The plaintiff investor and the defendant brokerage firm signed a framework agreement for leveraged trading dated 1 November 2019. The investor deposited 8,800 USD into the account on 21 November 2019 and began trading.

The trades at the centre of the dispute took place on 23 March 2020, between 02:17 and 04:08. According to the expert examination, 6 of the 11 pages of the account statement consist solely of the 344 trades made in this time window. The brokerage firm argued that the trades were made on the EUR/NOK pair, which has very low volume, that the lot size was raised from 0.05 up to 6, and that the gains came from take-profit orders working on price gaps.

According to the statement before the revision, the investor made a profit of 120,063.10 USD and, together with the amount deposited, held a credit of 128,863.10 USD. The brokerage firm reviewed the trades and accepted the take-profit orders at the price level first entered; in the statement after the revision the investor's credit appeared as 23,985.09 USD. The investor requested withdrawal of this amount on 3 April 2020, but according to the petition it was stated that no payment would be made unless a reconciliation document was signed.

🗂️ The arguments of the investor and the brokerage firm

The investor started an enforcement proceeding without a court judgment for 128,863.10 USD before the Istanbul 22nd Enforcement Office; the payment order was served on 2 October 2020 and the brokerage firm objected on 5 October 2020. When the mediation talks produced no result, the investor filed an action to annul the objection, for the time being for 23,985.09 USD (183,219.71 TL). According to the investor, because of the "buy/sell at market price" structure of the platform, trades may be executed not at the price seen but at a better or worse level depending on market conditions; the brokerage firm, by contrast, changed the trades retroactively as if the take-profit levels had been secured in advance.

The brokerage firm put forward the following defences:

🔬 What the expert reports said

The main report obtained by the court of first instance found that the brokerage firm's revision of the trades of 23 March 2020 had no technical and concrete basis that could be regarded as reasonable under the SPK legislation and the contract provisions. The supplementary report included the following points:

• Capital markets legislation does not oblige brokerage firms to take a position against the client; it permits it as an option. The firm made this choice deliberately and took on the risk; had it passed the orders to the market, it would not have been the counterparty of the investor's gain and would, in addition, have earned commission income.
• Prices are not dictated by the liquidity provider; they consist of the transmission of market data formed by the balance of buyers and sellers. Gaps are common and well known in this market.
• For the nine orders sent at 03:03:41, manual trading would take on average 25-30 seconds, yet the orders were transmitted within the same milliseconds; this does not fit manual trading patterns. The producer of the trading platform software, in its correspondence with the brokerage firm, stated that it could not be said with certainty that the trades were made by a human.
• Although there is a possibility that a robot was used, there is no finding that trades were made at prices different from those shown on the platform or from the market price.

⚖️ The first-instance and appeal decisions

In its decision of 15 December 2022 (Docket No. 2020/767 E., Decision No. 2022/916 K.), the Istanbul 5th Commercial Court of First Instance held that it had not been proven that the investor used software in breach of the contract and the SPK legislation, and that the brokerage firm's revision was not in line with the legislation and the contract. The court partly accepted the action and partly annulled the objection; it ordered the proceeding to continue for 23,985.09 USD, with interest from the date of the proceeding under Article 4/a of Law No. 3095. Because the claim was liquid, enforcement denial compensation of 36,852.13 TL, calculated at the exchange rate on the date of the proceeding, was also collected from the brokerage firm. The amendment of the claim was held invalid and the request for the excess amount was rejected.

Both parties appealed the decision. The investor asked that the amended part also be accepted; the brokerage firm argued that the action should be rejected entirely, that the interest was contrary to the principle of being bound by the request, and that the attorney's fee should be calculated at the exchange rate on the date of the decision. The Regional Court of Appeal grouped the dispute under these headings: whether the trades were made in bad faith, whether an algorithm was used, whether the evidence was sufficient for proof, and whether the amendment of the claim complied with procedure.

The chamber stated that the evidence had been collected in the first-instance decision and that there was no error in the application of the law or in the reasoning, and rejected the appeals of the parties' counsel separately on the merits under Article 353/1-b-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK). The decision was given with the right of appeal to the Court of Cassation open within two weeks from notification.

⏳ Why was the amendment of the claim not heard?

The most striking part of the decision from the enforcement law side is the assessment of the amendment. Under Article 67/1 of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law (İİK), a creditor whose enforcement request has been objected to may sue for annulment of the objection within one year from notification of the objection. The investor filed the action partially for 23,985.09 USD and, with a petition submitted in December 2021, sought to raise the claim to the full amount in the proceeding; if that was not accepted, the investor asked in the alternative that the increased portion of 104,878.01 USD be heard as a claim for payment.

The brokerage firm argued that there had been two separate mediation processes (14 October 2020 – 26 October 2020 and 10 December 2020 – 22 December 2020) and that the 44 days between the two should count towards the period. The Regional Court of Appeal held that the first mediation ended without agreement on 26 October 2020 and that, as of the date of the amendment, the one-year forfeiture period had expired. According to the chamber, the amendment also does not contain a request properly made as an alternative claim for payment within an action to annul an objection; such an action is strictly tied to the enforcement proceeding. The rejection of the claim beyond the amount brought before the court was therefore found correct.

This aspect of the decision also recalls the distinction in Article 67/5 of the İİK: a creditor who misses the period for annulment of the objection keeps the right to bring a claim for payment under the general rules. However, this right does not mean that an expired claim can be added to the same action to annul the objection by amendment.

🤖 The burden of proof in a robot allegation

The Regional Court of Appeal accepted the experts' finding of a "possibility that a robot was used", but stated that, because there was no concrete evidence, this possibility did not constitute evidence against the investor. The distinctions that stand out in the decision can be summarised as follows:

This decision deals with a different scenario from order cancellations based on a price correction by the liquidity provider in cases of deleted profits in leveraged trading. For a case based on cancellation by a liquidity provider, see the article on Court of Cassation 11th Civil Chamber decision 2025/6996TR; for cancellation because of an erroneous rate and a negative balance, see the article on Court of Cassation 11th Civil Chamber 2022/2600TR.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

For detailed information and legal support, you can contact Savun Law & Consultancy. The contact details are on the contact page; other decisions on leveraged trading and brokerage firm disputes can be followed on the Precedent DecisionsTR page.