Newsletter - CONSOB AND ITS ACTIVITIES
Newsletter
Weekly newsletter - year XXIX - No. 13 - 17 April 2023
News of the week:
Watch for scams! Financial fraud: Consob blacks out 4 more abusive websites
Consob 2023 Regulatory Activities plan published
Save the date: 28 April 2023 Corporate governance, sustainability and shareholder
Save the date - 9 June 2023 Consob’s annual meeting with the financial market at Borsa Italiana
Investor protection warnings from other regulatory authorities
- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
Consob has ordered the black-out of 4 new websites that offer financial services illegally.
The commission availed itself of the new powers resulting from the "Decreto Crescita" ("Growth Decree"; Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), on the basis of which Consob can order internet service providers to block access from Italy to websites offering financial services without the proper authorisation.
Below are the sites Consob has ordered to be blacked out:
- FXTime (website https://fxtime.io and its pages https://client.fxtime.io and https://webtrader.fxtime.io);
- MVE Holdings Limited (website www.valutamarkets.com and its page https://dashboard.valutamarkets.com);
- EuroTrade Forex (website https://eurotradeforex.com and its pages https://client.eurotradeforex.com and https://client.fisherforex.com);
- Axiancefx (websitehttps://axiancefx.com and its pages https://client.axiancefx.com and https://webtrader.axiancefx.com).
The number of sites blacked out since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order the black-out of websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries, has thus risen to 875.
The measures adopted by Consob can be consulted on the website www.consob.it.
The black-out of these websites by internet service providers operating on Italian territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the black-out to come into effect.
Consob draws investors' attention to the importance of adopting the greatest diligence in order to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviours, essential to safeguard one's savings: these include, for websites that offer financial services, checking in advance that the operator with whom you are investing is authorised, and, for offers of financial products, that a prospectus has been published.
To this end, Consob would remind you that there is a section on the homepage of its website www.consob.it entitled "Watch for scams!", providing useful information to warn investors against financially abusive initiatives.
Consob has published the 2023 Regulatory Activities Plan, prepared in implementation of Article 2 of the Regulation on the procedures for the adoption of acts of general regulation of Consob (Resolution 19654 of 5 July 2016), and the update of the Plan of the tasks for the impact assessment of the regulations relating to the two-year period 2022-2023.
Provision 19654, as amended by resolution no. 22203 of 10 February 2022, provides in fact that Consob defines a non-binding programming document containing: i) the annual Plan of the activities it intends to carry out for the adoption of the general regulatory acts("Regulatory Activities Plan"); ii) the two-year Plan of the tasks for the impact assessment of the regulations ("VIR Plan").
The Regulatory Plan has the function of informing the public on the main issues that will be the subject of Consob's regulatory activity, or on which Consob intends to carry out regulatory impact assessments to evaluate the suitability of its regulatory activity to achieve the objectives pursued, in relation to the overall onerousness of the regulatory framework.
The Plan contains a brief introduction on the developments of the European and national regulatory framework in the previous year (2022), their expected trend in 2023, and a table containing the program of planned regulatory interventions. These include, in particular:
- the review of Consob's secondary legislation aimed at identifying regulatory simplification measures aimed at the objectives defined in the Finance Plan for Growth, the review of Consob Regulation No. 20249 of 28 December 2017 which sets out the implementation rules of Italian Legislative Decree No. 58 of 24 February 1998 on markets ("Market Regulation"), so as to adapt its regulations to the measures introduced under the Capital Market Recovery Package;
- the adaptation of the secondary legislation of Consob to the provisions of the EU regulation on European providers of Crowdfunding services for companies (EU regulation 2020/1503);
- the revision of the Market Regulation, in order to implement the "Pilot Regime Regulation" (Regulation (EU) 2022/858);
- the definition of the provisions applicable to the entities supervised by Consob that participate in securitisation transactions;
- the adoption of a regulation on the authorisation and supervision of entities entitled to bid on the emission quotas auctioning market pursuant to Article 20-ter, par. 1) of the Consolidated Law on Finance;
- amendments to the Market Regulation to adapt the relevant secondary legislation to the decree-law of 17 May 2022, No. 50, transposing Directive (EU) 2019/2177, which modifies MiFID II in terms of data communication services (Approved Publication Arrangements (APA), Approved Reporting Mechanisms (ARM) and Consolidated Tape Providers (CTP), and implementation of Regulation (EU) 2019/2175, which amended the MiFIR.
The 2023 Regulatory Activities Plan also provides for the start of work on the revision of the regulatory provisions on the supervision of third-country auditors and the independence of auditors of Public-Interest Entities ("PIEs").
Finally, in 2023, further regulatory measures were introduced to regulate the use of the new powers relating to so-called mystery shopping, attributed to Consob by the Consumer Code, as amended by the European Law 2019-2020.
The programming document also presents the table of the tasks for the impact assessment of the regulations that Consob intends to carry out during the two-year period 2022-2023 covering:
- Regulation No 18750 of 19 December 2016 on the Consob's sanctioning proceedings (Sanctioning Regulation);
- the provisions of the Issuers' Regulations regarding takeover and exchange bids;
- the Regulation on the communication of non-financial information (Regulation No. 20267 of 18 January 2018).
Consob, the Italian Committee for Corporate Governance and the Italian association for joint-stock companies, Assonime, will present a conference on "Corporate governance, sustainability and dialogue with shareholders" on 28 April from 10:00 at the Consob Auditorium.
The speakers will be Paolo Savona (Chair of Consob), Lucia Calvosa (Chair of the Italian Committee for Corporate Governance) and Patrizia Grieco (Chair of Assonime).
At the conference, the following will be presented:
- the Consob Report on the corporate governance of Italian listed companies, which provides evidence on ownership structures, corporate bodies, meetings and transactions with related parties. The 2022 Report, which will be published on Consob's institutional website, contains an in-depth analysis of the gender diversity of the corporate bodies and an addendum on the shareholder dialogue (engagement) policies of medium-large listed companies;
- the Report of the Italian Corporate Governance Committee, which assesses the state of implementation of the Corporate Governance Code and makes some recommendations to companies for its more effective application;
- the Report on Assonime-Emittenti Titoli, which provides an in-depth analysis on the corporate governance of Italian listed companies in the light of the guidelines set out in the Corporate Governance Code.
A detailed programme of the event and information on how to participate will be published shortly.
Consob's customary annual meeting with the financial market will be held on Friday 9 June at 11:00 in Milan, at Palazzo Mezzanotte, the historic headquarters of Borsa Italiana.
The supervisory authorities of United Kingdom (Financial Conduct Authority - FCA), Greece (Hellenic Capital Market Commission - HCMC), Luxembourg (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier - CSSF), Spain (Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores - CNMV), Romania (Financial Supervisory Authority, Romania - FSA), and Malta (Malta Financial Services Authority - MFSA), report the companies and websites offering investment, financial and insurance services without the required authorisations.
Reported by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) - United Kingdom:
- Phoenix24 (https://phoenix24.io), clone of a licensed company;
- Airquest Capital Group (https://www.airquestcapgroup.com);
- Vaquita Capital / Vaquita Fund Slp / Vaquita Services Limited / Iglobal Management / Robinson & Cooper Wealth Management;
- L&G Fixed Rate Bond / lg-investments.co.uk (email: enquiries@lg-investments.co.uk), clone of a licensed company;
- Jcrl Vehicle Lease Limited (www.jcrlvehiclelease.com), clone of a licensed company;
- Queen Street Finance (email: irm.queries@fca.broker), clone of a licensed company;
- Zoom Bit / zoom-bit.com (www.zoom-bit.com), clone of a licensed company;
- National Debt Advice / National-debt-advice.co.uk (www.national-debt-advice.co.uk);
- West Common Investments Ltd (https://westcommoninvestments.co.uk);
- Daily Fx Indices (www.dailyfxindices.net), clone of a licensed company;
- Rwm Trade / Rwmtrade.com (www.rwmtrade.com), clone of a licensed company;
- Coincryptowallet (https://www.coin-crypto.top);
- Afex Europe Limited / Afex EU (www.afexeu.com);
- Richard Duncan Forex trading / 365 View Options (www.rdfx-innovationmarkets.online, www.365viewoptions.online);
- Alphabitchain.org (https://alphabitchain.org);
- Epic-Growth Investment Company Limited (www.epic-growth.online);
- Fastcoinworld.com (www.fastcoinworld.com);
- Crypto-Surge Trading (www.crypto-surge.com);
- Rapidlending (www.rapidlending.co.uk), clone of a licensed company;
- Upholdfxquick (www.upholdfxquick.com);
- Traders-Square.com Limited / Traders-Square.com Securities (www.traders-square.com);
- Price Markets UK (www.pricemarketsukltd.com);
- Rce Banque / Bridgewater Associates (https://rcebanque.company);
- Pixxo / Pixxo.co.uk (www.pixxo.co.uk);
- Bitech-Max / Robertson Rayner (https://www.robertsonrayner.com/, https://www.bitech-max.co);
- Citimortgage Bank (https://citimortgagebank.com);
- FX Notch Trading (https://fxnotchtrading.com);
- Fxtradeprofit (https://fxprofitscvm.com);
- Fx Options (www.fxoptionx.com);
- Phenom Auto Fx Pro (www.phenomautofxp.com);
- Chainndex (https://chainndex.io);
- Everest Private Assets (https://everestprivateassets.com);
- Wharton Asset Management Capital Limited / Wharton Ltd (llpgpro.com/whartonltd, www.whartonlimited.co);
- Trustminers World Limited (www.trustminers.world);
- Nux Trade (https://nuxtrade.com);
- Solid Rock Loans (www.solidrock.loans);
- Markets Expert / Marketsxpert.com (www.marketsxpert.com);
- Alpe Market (www.alpemarket.com, www.alpemarket.net, www.alpemarket.co);
- Smart Express Cryptocurrency (https://smartexpresscryptocurrency.com);
- Fastswingpayout.online (https://fastswingpayout.online).
Reported by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) – Luxembourg:
- Co-Finance Trade Limited (https://cofinancetradeltd.com);
- Bond Street Holdings S.A. (https://bondstreet-holdings.com), clone of a licensed company;
- Lux Sozial Servicer (https://luxsozialservicer.com).
The Luxembourg Supervisory Commission also warns the public of savers that persons unknown usurp the name of the CSSF by sending e-mails via the e-mail address in the format support@cssf.international and presenting themselves as "CSSF Support Office". The Authority wishes to specify that for its email communications it uses only the address with the format @cssf.lu.
Reported by the Hellenic Capital Market Commission – (HCMC) – Greece:
- https://excellenceinvest.com;
- www.cointrade.cc.;
- www.globalspotfx.com;
- https://spotfinex.com;
- www.27proquote.com;
- www.blackdiamondswiss.com;
- 4fxluxus (ww38.4fxluxus.com);
- Up4profit (https://up4profit.com).
Reported by the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) – Spain:
- https://dtsmartoption.com;
- https://bestfxearn.com/?a=home;
- Paladin Trading (https://paladin-trading-bot.com);
- Dev Global Llc (https://itgsolution.net).
Reported by the Financial Supervisory Authority, Romania (FSA) – Romania:
- Pixpal Pro / Pix Consulting Limited (https://pixpalpro.com, https://web.pixpal.tech, https://mobile.pixpal.tech/);
- Nexus Llc / Wizz Capital (https://wizzcapital.net);
- Invest Point (https://investpoint.pro).
Reported by Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) – Malta:
- Royal Investment Consortium (www.royalinvestmentconsortium.com).
Order, pursuant to art. 7-octies, letter b) of Italian Legislative Decree no. 58 of 24 February 1998 (Consolidated Law on Finance) to cease infringement of art. 18 of Consolidated Law on Finance, put in place by:
- FXTime via the website https://fxtime.io and its pages https://client.fxtime.io and https://webtrader.fxtime.io (resolution no. 22670 of 12 April 2023);
- MVE Holdings Limited through the websitewww.valutamarkets.com and its page https://dashboard.valutamarkets.com (resolution no. 22673 of 12 April 2023);
- EuroTrade Forex via the website https://eurotradeforex.com and its pages https://client.eurotradeforex.com and https://client.fisherforex.com (resolution no. 22672 of 12 April 2023);
- Axiancefx via the website https://axiancefx.com and its pages https://client.axiancefx.com and https://webtrader.axiancefx.com (resolution no. 22671 of 12 April 2023);