Traders Who Made $500 Million in Oil Crash Deny Manipulation

Vega Capital London Ltd.—the small trading house facing manipulation claims in a Chicago federal court over oil’s crash into negative price territory in April—defended its $500 million haul that day, saying it did no more than observe the market signals forecasting a “once-in-a-century storm” caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit against Vega ignores “the obvious explanation for the price volatility,” the firm says in a motion to dismiss the proposed class action led by Mish International Monetary Inc., a coin collector, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

“Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other countries ...