Resolution no. 22686

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 https://acerfinance.co

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 the checks carried out, it emerged that:

1. the website https://acerfinance.co, which is active and available in Italian, is divided into the sections "About us", "For investors", "Resources" and "Analysis" and offers users the possibility to trade forex contracts, shares, indices and commodities, subject to registration and opening of one of the advertised trading accounts ("Standard", "Business" and "Investor");
2. after registering, access is granted to the reserved area of the site, which consists of four sections ("Dashboard"/"Finance", "Trading" and "My Profile"), and also contains a special function for depositing liquidity on the trading account;
3. with regard to the legal entity that was found to operate the website in question, the documents "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Policy" make generic reference to "AcerFinance", and the "Contacts" page, which contains a form for requesting information, contains references to the e-mail address support@acerfinance.co.

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the website https://acerfinance.co is deemed to constitute 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 the aforesaid domain, to open a trading account where they can place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS such activity, carried out through the website https://acerfinance.co, is still ongoing and aimed at Italian investors, insofar as said website is available in Italian and complaints have also been received from Italian users, and in one case a complainant specified a phone number with an Italian dialling code which was said to have been used to contact him/her; Furthermore, no mechanism was found aimed at blocking registration by users attempting to register with the website from Italy via Italian IP addresses;

WHEREAS "AcerFinance", mentioned on this website, is not authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, since it does not appear 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 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 article 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 unauthorised provision of investment services" - Consob "may, with regard to anyone who offers or carries out investment services or activities over the Internet without being qualified pursuant to this decree: […] b) order that the infringement cease";

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 art. 18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/98 performed through the website https://aceifinance.co, constituted by the offer and provision of investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be brought to the attention of the all 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.

26 April 2023

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona