Resolution no. 23337

Order, pursuant to Article 7-octies, paragraph 1, letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 (“Consolidated Law on Finance”) to cease the breach of Article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance carried out via the https://fidus-invest.com website and its related pages https://panel.fidus-invest.com and https://trade.webtrader-fx.com

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:

1. via the website https://fidus-invest.com potential investors are offered the opportunity to "tradeCFD su FX, shares, commodities, cryptocurrencies, indices and options". In particular, the possibility of investing in "Over 2000 Assets ... more than 600 shares available on the platform", including the main Italian shares, is highlighted;
2. to carry out such trading activity, users must register on the website https://fidus-invest.com, through the domain https://panel.fidus-invest.com, and subsequently open a trading account; In particular, three account types are proposed ("Standard Account", "Professional Account" and "Exclusive Account"), with different expected deposit amounts and operational characteristics;
3. after registering, users may access the reserved area of the website, available on the aforementioned domain https://panel.fidus-invest.com, which also contains a function dedicated to making deposits and where it is possible to access the trading platform in the domain https://trade.webtrader-fx.com;
4. as regards traceability, on the website https://fidus-invest.com and the pages https://panel.fidus-invest.com and https://trade.webtrader-fx.com there are references to “Fidus Invest” and, as a means of contact, the email address is indicatedinfo@fidus-invest.com.

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the website https://fidus-invest.com and the respective pages https://panel.fidus-invest.com and https://trade.webtrader-fx.com is deemed to constitute the provision of investment services pursuant to article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, given that the above domain allows users to trade financial instruments;

WHEREAS the aforementioned activity is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, insofar as the aforementioned domains are also available in Italian through an integrated automatic system, there have been reports of cold calling an Italian investor, and moreover no mechanism was found to block registration by users attempting to register on the website from Italy through Italian IP addresses;

WHEREAS the https://fidus-invest.com website and its pages https://panel.fidus-invest.com and https://trade.webtrader-fx.com cannot be attributed to any entity 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 professional 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 the cessation of the infringement”;

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. 58/1998 carried out through the website https://fidus-invest.com and pages https://panel.fidus-invest.com, and https://trade.webtrader-fx.com, constituted by the offering 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.

27 November 2024

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona