Resolution no. 22240

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 www.247protrade.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 7 June 1974 and subsequent amendments and supplements;

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

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

i. the www.247protrade.com website, which is active, registered anonymously and available in Italian, offers potential investors the opportunity to trade CFDs on currencies, indices, commodities, shares and cryptocurrencies;

ii. in order to place such trades, users must register with the www.247protrade.com website – through a procedure that is also available for Italian users – open a trading account and deposit the necessary funds;

iii. with regard to traceability, the "Terms and Conditions" of the www.247protrade.com website state that the contractual counterparty of any user registering with the above domain and opening a trading account on it is "247ProTrade", with no mention of the address of a registered office;

iv. among other things, the "Contact us" section of the www.247protrade.com website indicates a contact telephone number with an Italian country code;

WHEREAS the activity carried out through thewww.247protrade.com websiteconstitutes the provision of investment services pursuant to article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, given that users are offered the opportunity through said domain to open a tradingaccount and place orders on it to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS the above-described transactions, carried out through the www.247protrade.comwebsite, are still ongoing and are aimed at Italian investors since the www.247protrade.com site is also available in Italian and there have also been reports regarding the domain ofcold calling of retail investors in Italy. Moreover, as already stated, the "Contact us" section of the www.247protrade.com website indicates a contact telephone number with an Italian country code;

WHEREAS "247ProTrade", mentioned on the www.247protrade.com website, is not authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, insofar as 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 website www.247protrade.com, which constitutes the provision of 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.

23 February 2022

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona