Side by Side · Episode 2 · Thu 8 Oct 2026
An expiry date went to court. The website lost.
20 April 2020: a UK provider’s expiry webpage showed 18 May, in error. The contract ran out that evening, 5pm New York.
London’s High Court, 2023: the webpage “had no contractual force at all”. In that contract only the expiry PDF had it. A screenshot is not a contract.
WTI November: one provider’s table says close-only Tuesday 13 October, expiry Wednesday 14. NYMEX trades it until Tuesday 20.
Watch for · Tue 13 Oct
Find the document your terms name for expiry dates. Read WTI November there: close-only, expiry, time zone.
Where does your contract keep its expiry dates?
Sources
High Court of England and Wales (London Circuit Commercial Court), [2023] EWHC 1349 (Comm), paragraphs 72, 77 and 89 · CFTC, Interim Staff Report on NYMEX WTI crude trading on and around 20 April 2020 · CME Group, NYMEX Rulebook, Rule 200102.F · ICE, WTI Crude Futures expiry dates (Nov26: 19 October) · one provider’s published futures-CFD expiry table. Read 8 October 2026. The case concerned oil spread bets at another provider under English law; the judge also found the client knew his contracts expired that evening, and the claim was dismissed. 20 April 2020 is the day the May WTI future settled at −$37.63; the exchange’s own contract traded one more day, to 21 April. 5pm New York was 23:00 Amsterdam. Where to look: terms of business, product guide, expiry schedule, the platform’s contract specification. Closing before the exchange is normal: a CFD takes no delivery. Dates differ per provider: check your own. Times in Amsterdam (CEST); London one hour earlier, Johannesburg the same, Lagos one hour earlier. Mechanism, not direction.
