Delibera no. 20365

Order, pursuant to Art. 7-octies, Par. 1, Letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 (“Consolidated Law on Finance”) to discontinue the infringement of Article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance performed through the www.topfx24.com website

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 June 7, 1974, and subsequent amendments and additions;

HAVING REGARD TO Legislative Decree no. 58 of February 24, 1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance") and subsequent amendments and additions;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that, from checks on the www.topfx24.com website, it emerged that:

i. the www.topfx24.com website, registered in anonymous form by a user whose identity is not known, is also available in Italian;

ii. the potential investor, after the registration on the said website and the opening an account via a form available online, has the opportunity of trading on the currency market (FOREX) and in CFDs , currencies, precious metals and commodities through the MT4 platform;

iii. in order to carry out trading transactions, an investment of money is required to be paid into the account opened online. In particular, the said website offers various types of account, namely “Micro”, “Standard”, “Premium”, “Gold”, “VIP” and “Black”, distinguished above all by the minimum deposit required and by the benefits;

iv. in the “Contact Us” section and at the bottom all of the pages of the said website, is mentioned the “Topfx24 Ltd” company, with alleged office in Saint Vincent and Grenadines;

v. the www.topfx24.com website and the services offered therein can therefore be attributed to “Topfx24 Ltd”.

HAVING ESTABLISHED, furthermore, from the information available, that people operating in the name of “TopFx24” have contacted Italian investors by telephone for the purpose of persuading them to open an account and trade on the aforementioned website;

HAVING ESTABLISHED to this regard that the company TopFx24 Ltd uses even direct methods of contact and interaction with Italian clients, including via the aforementioned website, providing instructions on the procedures and operations to be followed for the purpose of investing in financial instruments;

HAVING CONSIDERED that the operations described above, including via the www.topfx24.com website, are directed towards the Italian investing public, insofar as the Italian version of the this website can be accessed from the said domain and has no blocking mechanism in place to prevent Italian users from registering;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that the activities carried out via the said website can be classed as the provision of investment services as referred to in Art. 1, para. 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as clients are offered the opportunity of opening a trading account against which purchase and/or sale orders for financial instruments can be issued;

HAVING REGARD to the fact that the provision of investment services and activities is reserved for the qualified subjects referred to in Article 18, paragraph 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance pursuant to which "The professional provision of investment services and activities for the public is reserved for investment firms and banks";

HAVING ESTABLISHED that the Topfx24 company is not authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, insofar as it is not registered on the dedicated register held by CONSOB pursuant to Art. 20 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that the operations in question can be classed as the professional provision of investment services involving financial instruments to the Italian public, in infringement of Art. 18, para. 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING CONSIDERED that, as provided for by Art. 7-octies of the Consolidated Law on Finance - entitled “Powers to counteract abuse” - CONSOB “may, with regard to anyone who offers or carries out investment services or activities through the Internet without being qualified therefore pursuant to this decree: a) make public, even by way of a precaution, the circumstance that the party is not authorised to carry out the activity indicated by article 1, paragraph 5; b) order that the infringement cease”;

HEREBY RESOLVES:

The order is issued to cease the infringement of Art .18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 also performed through the www.topfx24.com website, consisting of the provision of investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be notified to those concerned and published in CONSOB’s Bulletin.

This measure may be appealed with the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio within 60 days from the date of notification.

28 marzo 2018

THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN
Anna Genovese