Resolution no. 23035

Order, pursuant to article 7-octies, paragraph 1, letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance") to cease the breach of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance carried out via the https://ai2trade.co.com website and its related pages https://panel.ai2trade.co.com and https://trading.ai2trade.co.com

LA COMMISSIONE NAZIONALE PER LE SOCIETÀ E LA BORSA

HAVING REGARD to Law no. 216 of 7 June 1974, as subsequently amended and supplemented;

HAVING REGARD to Legislative Decree no. 58 of 24 February 1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance"), as subsequently amended and supplemented;

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

i. the https://ai2trade.co.com website, which is active, registered anonymously and available in Italian, offers potential investors the opportunity to trade CFDs on currencies, commodities and shares;

ii. in order to place such trades, users must register with the website https://ai2trade.co.com - through a procedure that is also available for Italian users - access the personal area of the website https://ai2trade.co.com available on the page https://panel.ai2trade.co.com, open an account, deposit funds and access the trading platform available on the page https://trading.ai2trade.co.com;

iii. as to traceability, the bottom of the pages of the website https://ai2trade.co.com "Ai2Trade Ltd" is mentioned, with stated registered office in London and the indication of an e-mail address (support@brokerageentites.com);

HAVING REGARD TO Consob Resolution no. 22986 of 31 January 2024, whereby Ai2Trade Ltd, with stated registered office in London, was ordered to cease the infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance conducted through the separate website www.ai2trade.com and respective pages https://panel.ai2trade.com and https://trading.ai2trade.com;

WHEREAS, in addition to using a domain that is partially superimposable on that of the aforementioned website www.ai2trade.com and respective pages https://panel.ai2trade.com andhttps://trading.ai2trade.com, the website https://ai2trade.co.com and respective pages https://panel.ai2trade.co.com and https://trading.ai2trade.co.com replicate the content and graphic format of the said website www.ai2trade.com and respective pages https://panel.ai2trade.com and https://trading.ai2trade.com;

WHEREAS the activity carried out via the https://ai2trade.co.com website and its related pages https://panel.ai2trade.co.com and https://trading.ai2trade.co.com constitutes provision of investment services, as referred to in article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as users are offered the opportunity through the said domains of opening a trading account where they can place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS such activity, carried out through the website https://ai2trade.co.com and its related pages https://panel.ai2trade.co.com https://trading.ai2trade.co.com, is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, since the website https://ai2trade.co.com is available in Italian and a copy of the correspondence exchanged in Italian through instant messaging applications between Italian retail investors and operators of the websitehttps://ai2trade.co.com was filed in the records. In addition, complaints were received from Italian retail investors who claimed that they were unable to get their money back to trade on the website https://ai2trade.co.com and in the same website https://ai2trade.co.com no mechanism was found to block registration by users attempting to register with the website https://ai2trade.co.com from Italy through Italian IP addresses;

WHEREAS the transactions recorded on the website https://ai2trade.co.com and its related pages https://trading.ai2trade.co.com and https://panel.ai2trade.co.com cannot be attributed to any entity authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, given that Ai2Trade Ltd, having its stated registered office in London, which is mentioned on the domains above, does not appear on the register kept 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 commercial 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 activities in question qualify as the professional provision of investment services to the Italian public, in breach of Article 18, paragraph 1 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD to the provisions of Article 7-octies, letter b) of the Consolidated Law on Finance - "Powers to counteract unauthorised provision of investment services" - pursuant to which 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 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 article 18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/98 carried out through the website https://ai2trade.co.com and its pages https://panel.ai2trade.co.com and https://trading.ai2trade.co.com 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 concerned parties and published in the Consob Bulletin.

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

13 March 2024

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona