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News of the week:
Watch for scams! Financial fraud: Consob blacks out 6 more unauthorised websites
TODAY 4 MARCH 2024: Brick Walls and Glass Ceilings - Female leadership and the ESG mission
Dimensionality reduction techniques to support insider trading detection: new Fintech Research Paper published
Consob – Bank of Italy Memorandum of Understanding on Issuers
Assignments of office

Commission decisions

N.B. measures adopted by Consob are published in the electronic Bulletin and, where envisaged, also in the Gazzetta Ufficiale. This newsletter summarises the more important or general measures and their disclosure here is therefore merely to update readers on Commission activities.

 

- NEWS OF THE WEEK-

Consob has ordered the blackout of 6 new websites that abusively offer financial services/financial products: 5 abusive financial intermediation sites and 1 site through which financial products are offered without a prospectus.

The Authority availed itself of the powers deriving from the "growth decree" (Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, article 36, paragraph 2-terdecies) regarding the blackout of the sites of abusive financial intermediaries, as well as the power introduced by Law no. 8 of 28 February 2020, article 4, paragraph 3-bis, regarding the blackout of the website through which the abusive offer is made.

Below are the sites Consob has ordered to be blacked out:

Ether Limited (website https://ethertrader.cc and its page https://client.ethertrades.cc);

- Aegion Group Ltd (website www.safecap.io and its page https://client.safecap.io);

- Investment Analysts (website https://investment-analysts.co and its page https://client.investment-analysts.co);

- Fidelitycfd (website www.fidelitycfd.com and its page https://wt.fidelitycfd.com);

- Mex-Fx (website https://mex-fx.com and its page https://client.mex-fx.com);

- Ultraford (website https://ultraford.cc).

The number of sites blacked out since July 2019, when Consob was given the power to order the black-out of websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries, has thus risen to 1035.

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.

Please note, there is a section on the homepage of the www.consob.it website, entitled "Watch for Scams!", which provides useful information warning investors about fraudulent financial schemes.

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Today, Monday, March 4, from 10:00 to 13:00, the conference "Brick Walls and Glass Ceilings - Female Leadership and the ESG Mission" organised by Consob will be held at the Consob Auditorium in Rome, Via Claudio Monteverdi 35.

Maurizio Leo (Vice-Minister of Economy and Finance) will open the conference.

The presentations on Female Leadership, introduced by Gabriella Alemanno (Consob Commissioner), will follow including those by: Mirja Cartia d'Asero (CEO of Il Sole 24 Ore); Maria Laura Garofalo (CEO of Garofalo Health Care); Elena Patrizia Goitini (CEO of BNL BNP Paribas); Nicoletta Spagnoli (Chair & CEO of Luisa Spagnoli); Annalisa Stupenengo (CEO of Landi Renzo Group).

Subsequently, regarding the ESG Mission, introduced by Silvia Ulissi (Consob Corporate Governance Division), presentations will be given by the sustainability managers: Maria Enrica Danese (TIM); Giulia Genuardi (ENEL); Liana Mazzarella (Banco BPM Group); Francesca Rambaudi (Amplifon); Lucia Silva (Assicurazioni Generali). Chiara Mosca (Consob Commissioner) will make the concluding remarks.

Andrea Cabrini (Director of Class CNBC) will moderate the event.

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The publication of the Fintech Research Paper "Dimensionality reduction techniques to support insider trading detection", expands on the research initiated by Consob in collaboration with the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa on the solutions that new technologies, based on AI applications, may offer to support market supervision. More specifically, the study - based on an anonymised data set - addresses the problem of identifying potential cases of insider trading and proposes a different methodological approach compared to previous studies that have made use of unsupervised machine learning techniques; in this case, in fact, the technique of decomposition and subsequent reconstruction of a time series sequence of data is applied through the analysis of the "principal components" (PCA, Principal Component Analysis) and the use of autoencoders, in relation to the trading positions of groups of investors in a given share near to a price sensitive event.

In intuitive terms, the logic that is followed in the procedure for identifying anomalous behaviour by investors considers the normal position reconstructed through the PCA technique as representative of normal behaviour. Any deviation in the behaviour of a single investor from the normal behaviour reconstructed during the observation period (which is higher than a certain sensitivity threshold) is reported by the algorithm as anomalous and potentially worthy of further investigation through "traditional" investigation techniques. A particularly significant result of this study is the satisfactory convergence of the results obtained with those derived from the application of the unsupervised machine learning techniques described in the previous paper "A machine learning approach to support decision in insider trading detection", which was also the result of the cooperation between the Consob and the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa.

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The Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob) and the Bank of Italy signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen their cooperation with regard to issuers supervised by Consob that, at the same time, fall within the scope of direct supervision of the Bank of Italy.

Also taking into account the macroeconomic environment and market developments, the Protocol provides for the two Authorities to exchange a broad set of information regarding, in particular, prudential supervision, anti-money laundering supervision and crisis management, by the Bank of Italy, as well as that deriving from the supervisory activities that Consob carries out regarding ownership structure, governance, financial and non-financial information, and on the entities in charge of the statutory audit.

The agreement also provides for cooperation in the area of inspection and the exchange of communications and information when Consob initiates proceedings for the approval of prospectuses (or documents for exemption from the prospectus publication requirement) and documents relating to takeover and/or exchange bids involving entities supervised by the Bank of Italy.

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The Commission has assigned to Francesco Pirro, starting from 1 March 2024, the office of member of the High–Level Group on DORA Oversight (DORA HLGO) and the office of coordinator for Consob's participation in projects under the European Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox (EBS). By the same resolution (resolution no. 23023 of 28 February 2024), the Commission confirmed the assignment to Pirro of the office of Consob's Digital Transition Manager, which was already granted by resolution no. 21787 of 7 April 2021.

As from the same date of 1 March 2024:

- Francesco Pirro ceases to be Head of the Information Infrastructure Division that had been assigned to him by resolution no. 21417 of 25 June 2020;

- Nicola De Caro is assigned the office of Head of the Information Infrastructure Division (resolution no. 23024 of 28 February 2024).

Combating market abuse (art. 7-octies of the Consolidated Law on Finance)

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:

- Ether Limited via the website https://ethertrader.cc and its page https://client.ethertrades.cc (resolution no. 23026 of 28 February 2024);

- Aegion Group Ltd via the website www.safecap.io and its page https://client.safecap.io (resolution no. 23030 of 28 February 2024);

- Investment Analysts (website https://investment-analysts.co and its page https://client.investment-analysts.co (resolution no. 23027 of 28 February 2024);

- Fidelitycfd via the website www.fidelitycfd.com and its page https://wt.fidelitycfd.com (resolution no. 23029 of 28 February 2024);

- Mex-Fx via the website https://mex-fx.com and its page https://client.mex-fx.com (resolution no. 23028 of 28 February 2024);

- Ultraford via the website https://ultraford.cc (resolution no. 23025 of 28 February 2024).

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CONSOB INFORMS (Rome Tribunal Registration no. 250 of 30/10/2013) Chief Editor: Manlio Pisu - Editorial board: Antonella Nibaldi (coordinator), Claudia Amadio, Riccardo Carriero, Luca Cecchini, Domenico Conti, Laura Ferri, Chiara Tomaiuoli, Alfredo Gloria - Address: CONSOB Via G. B. Martini, 3 - 00198 Rome - telephone: (06) 84771 - fax: (06) 8417707. Documents or reports can be submitted via the interactive section of the web site www.consob.it, where CONSOB INFORMA can also be consulted via the "newsletter" link.