Resolution no. 23097

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 https://tradeontop.net website and the page https://platform.tradeontop.net

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 the checks carried out, it emerged that:

i. the https://tradeontop.net website, which is also active and available in Italian, offers potential investors the opportunity to trade cryptocurrencies, indices, shares, commodities and forex instruments;

ii. in order to place such trading transactions, users must register with the website through a procedure that is also available to users connecting from Italy and open an account on which to deposit funds; specifically, five types of accounts are advertised, depending on the minimum deposit and benefits, called "Student", "Standard", "Investitore" (Investor), "VIP" and "VIP PLATINO" (Platinum VIP);

iii. following registration, a web trading platform is displayed, located on the page https://platform.tradeontop.net, available in the Italian version, where it is possible to "trade currencies, cryptocurrencies, shares, indices, commodities, ETFs";

iv. with regard to the legal entity that was found to operate the website in question, in the "Terms and Conditions" it is specified that "TRADEONTOP is owned and operated by TRADEONTOP Limited. The operational address is: 80 Cheapside, London EC2V 6EE, United Kingdom" and the email address can be found on the website support@tradeontop.com;

HAVING REGARD to Consob Resolution no. 22842 of 9 October 2023, whereby "TRADEONTOP Limited" was ordered to cease the infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance carried out via the separate website https://tradeontop.com and the page https://platform.tradeontop.com;

WHEREAS, in addition to using a domain that is partially superimposable to the domain of the aforementioned https://tradeontop.com website, the https://tradeontop.net website replicates its content and graphic format;

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the website https://tradeontop.net and the webpage https://platform.tradeontop.net is deemed to constitute the provision of investment services, within the meaning of article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, inasmuch as said domain and the relevant page offer the possibility of opening a trading account and placing buy and/or sales orders on financial instruments;

WHEREAS the above activity, carried out through the website https://tradeontop.net and the page https://platform.tradeontop.net, is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, given that the aforementioned web domains are available also in Italian, and that cold calling of Italian consumers has also been reported and that no mechanism was found to block registration by users attempting to register with the website from Italy/through Italian IP addresses;

WHEREAS such activity carried out through the website https://tradeontop.net and the page https://platform.tradeontop.net cannot be attributed to any entity that is authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public.

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 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 through the Internet without being qualified pursuant to this decree: […] b) order that such 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://tradeontop.net and the page https://platformt.tradeontop.net, which constitutes 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.

2 May 2024

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona