Smallxchange.Com Ltd.

Consob has issued cease and desist orders for the activity consisting in the proposal to sell shares of SmallXChange.Com Ltd. to investors intending to participate in the organized trading system run by that company and for the activity consisting in the offer of the shares/capital parts of companies that, in order to be listed, have become members of that organized trading system; both activities are publicized, without the obligations referred to in Article 94 of the Consolidated Law on Financial Intermediation having been fulfilled, on the Internet site www.smallxchange.com. Consob has also issued a cease and desist order for the activity publicized on the same site, without the obligations referred to in Article 102 of the Consolidated Law having been fulfilled, consisting in the proposal for companies that intend to list their financial instruments on the organized trading system created by SmallXChange.Com Ltd. to receive shares of that company in exchange for their shares/capital parts.

In March 2000 Consob had already issued an order requiring SmallXChange.Com Ltd. to suspend its unauthorized solicitation of investors and unauthorized public offers to exchange financial instruments (Resolution 12412; see Consob Informs 10/2000). At the same time it had indefinitely suspended the organized trading effected on the website www.smallxchange.com (Resolution 12411) and prohibited the marketing of units of non-harmonized collective investment undertakings on the website www.tricalpa.com (Resolution 12410).

The new orders have been issued pursuant to Articles 99.1b) and 102.3b) of the Consolidated Law after Consob found the company that was the subject of the precautionary measures was breaking the law and in view of the need to protect investors. In fact, to date, neither SmallXChange.Com Ltd. nor the companies listed on the private stock exchange market it runs have fulfilled the obligations laid down for offerors by the rules on the solicitation of public savings contained in Articles 94 and 102 of the Consolidated Law on Financial Intermediation, which, inter alia , provide for the publication of an information document (in Consob Informa n. 32/2000 - 7 August 2000).