Resolution no. 22063

Order, pursuant to article 7-octies, paragraph 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 carried out through the website www.royalfx24.com and the relevant page https://royal24fx.com

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 7 June 1974 and subsequent amendments and supplements;

HAVING REGARD TO Legislative Decree no. 58 of 24 February 1998 (“Consolidated Law on Finance”) and subsequent amendments and supplements;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that, from checks on the web, it emerged that:

i. the website www.royalfx24.com - which is active, registered anonymously and available in Italian - offers potential investors the opportunity to trade CFDs on shares, currencies, indices and commodities;

ii. in order to place such trades, users must register with the website www.royalfx24.com – through a procedure that is also available for Italian users – open an account and deposit relevant funds;

iii. after registration, users are granted access to the reserved area of the website at the address https://royal24fx.com, which offers several functionalities, including features to deposit and withdraw liquidity on the trading account: in particular, three types of account are advertised, named “Reale”, “Demo” and “Islamico”, which vary according to the minimum deposit required and the benefits promised;

iv. as for the traceability of the website www.royalfx24.com and the respective pagehttps://royal24fx.com, in the "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Policy" sections there are generic references to "RoyalFX24" without any indication of the company name and registered office;

v. the “Contact” section of the website provides the e-mail address ”support@royalfx24.com”.

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the website www.royalfx24.com and the relevant page https://royal24fx.comconstitutes the provision of investment services, as referred to in article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as users are offered the possibility through the aforementioned domains to open a trading account and place buy and/or sale orders on financial instruments;

WHEREAS the aforementioned activity, carried out through the website www.royalfx24.com and the respective page https://royal24fx.com, is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, given that the site www.royalfx24.com is available in Italian, and there have been reports of cold calls being made to Italian retail investors regarding the same website;

WHEREAS “RoyalFX24”, as mentioned on the website www.royalfx24.com, is not authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, since it is not listed on the register maintained by Consob pursuant to article 20 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD TO the fact that the provision of investment services and activities is reserved to licensed parties as referred to under article 18, paragraph 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, pursuant to which, “The professional provision of investment services and activities to the public is reserved to Italian Investment firms, EU investment firms, Italian banks, EU banks and non-EU firms”;

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

HAVING REGARD TO the fact that, according to the provisions of article 7-octies, letter b) of the Consolidated Law on Finance - “Powers to counteract abusive practices” - Consob “may, with regard to anyone who offers or carries out investment services or activities over the Internet without being qualified to do so pursuant to this decree: […] b) order the cessation of the infringement”;

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

RESOLVES:

To order the cessation of the infringement of article 18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/98 carried out through the www.royalfx24.com website and its https://royal24fx.com page, consisting in offering and providing investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be brought to the attention of the concerned parties 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 service.

27 October 2021

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona