Resolution no. 23066

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 committed via the www.fpinvest247.io 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, 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. potential investors are offered the opportunity through the www.fpinvest247.io website – which is active, available in Italian and registered anonymously – to trade shares, indices, currency contracts, digital currencies and commodities;

ii. in order to place such trades, users must register with the www.fpinvest247.io website, and open a trading account in which to deposit funds; specifically, three different types of accounts are advertised on the website, entitled ("Iniziatore (Beginner)", "Premium " and "Business "), which differ, inter alia, according to the required minimum deposit;

iii. as to the traceability of the operations carried out on the website www.fpinvest247.io, there are numerous references on the website to "FP Invest", allegedly based in the UK;

HAVING REGARD TO Consob Resolution no. 22827 of 5 October 2023, whereby the aforementioned "FP Invest" was ordered to cease its breaching of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance conducted via the separate www.fpinvest.io website and its page https://client.fpinvest.io;

WHEREAS, in addition to using a domain that is similar to the domain of the aforementioned www.fpinvest.io website, the www.fpinvest247.io website replicates the content and graphic format of the former website;

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the website www.fpinvest247.io constitutes the provision of investment services within the meaning of article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, given that users are offered the opportunity to open a trading account and place buy and/or sell orders on financial instruments;

WHEREAS such activity is still ongoing, carried out through the website www.fpinvest247.io and is aimed at Italian investors, given that said internet domain is available in Italian, and there have been reports of cold calls being made to retail investors in Italy and complaints were also received from Italian investors;

WHEREAS the www.fpinvest247.io website cannot be attributed to an entity which is authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, insofar as the company "FP Invest", as mentioned on the above website, is not listed in 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 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 breach of article 18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/98 carried out via the www.fpinvest247.io website, 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 of the date of service.

10 April 2024

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona