Resolution no. 20912

Order, pursuant to art. 7-octies, par. 1, letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 ('Consolidated Law on Finance') to cease the infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance performed through the www.client.10brokers.com website

LA COMMISSIONE NAZIONALE PER LE SOCIETÀ E LA BORSA
[THE NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR COMPANIES AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE]

HAVING REGARD TO Law no. 216 of June 7, 1974 and subsequent amendments and additions;

HAVING REGARD TO Legislative Decree no. 58 of 24 February 1998 (‘Consolidated Law on Finance’) and subsequent amendments and additions;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that, from the checks on the www.client.10brokers.com website, it emerged that:

i. the www.client.10brokers.com website, registered anonymously, is also available in Italian and has no mechanism in place to prevent the registration of Italian users;

ii. following registration, potential investors can access pages that allow them to open an online trading account and access it to deposit the sums required to perform the trading transactions;

iii. it is also possible to access a page from which the trading platform Metatrader4 can be downloaded and installed;

iv. The web pages accessible through the website www.client.10brokers.com are similar in content and format to those found on the website www.10brokers.com, attributable to Nostro Technology OU, already the subject of an ‘investor protection warning’ by CONSOB;

v. the page related to credit card payments states that the domain in question is’"owned and operated’ by the company Nostro Technology OU, with declared registered address in Estonia;

HAVING CONSIDERED that the company Nostro Technology OU and the attributable website www.10brokers.com were the subject of an ‘investor protection warning’ published on the CONSOB website on October 30, 2017;

HAVING CONSIDERED that the activity - still carried out thorough the website www. client.10brokers.com - qualifies as the provision of investment services as referred to in art. 1, para. 5 of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as clients are offered the opportunity of opening a trading account against which purchase and/or sale orders for financial instruments can be issued;

HAVING CONSIDERED that the aforementioned and ongoing operations are directed towards Italian investors, insofar as the website is also available in Italian; furthermore, there have also been reports of cold calling;

HAVING CONSIDERED that Nostro Technology OU, now Euro Wealth OU, is not authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, insofar as it is not registered on the dedicated register held by CONSOB pursuant to Art. 20 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD to the fact that the provision of investment services and activities is reserved for the qualified subjects referred to in art. 18, para. 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, pursuant to which ‘The professional provision of investment services and activities

for the public is reserved for investment firms and banks’;

HAVING ESTABLISHED, therefore, that the operations in question qualify as the professional provision of investment services involving financial instruments to the Italian public, in infringement of art. 18, para. 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD TO the fact that, according to art. 7-octies of the Consolidated Law on Finance - ‘Powers to counteract abuse’ - CONSOB ‘may, with regard to anyone who offers or carries out investment services or activities through the Internet without being qualified therefore pursuant to this decree:

a)make public, even by way of a precaution, the fact that the party is not authorised to perform the activity indicated in article 1, paragraph 5; b) order the party to cease the infringement';

CONSIDERING it therefore necessary, in the light of the foregoing, to adopt this resolution immediately for reasons of urgency;

HEREBY RESOLVES:

The order is issued to cease the infringement of art. 18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 performed via www.client.10brokers.com, consisting of the offer and the provision of investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be brought to the attention of those concerned and published in the CONSOB Bulletin.

This measure may be appealed before the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio within 60 days of the date of notification.

May 2, 2019

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona