Resolution no. 21832

Order, pursuant to article 7-octies, paragraph 1, letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance") to cease the infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance carried out through the www.ainvestments.eu website and relative https://trading.ainvestments.eu page

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 and subsequent amendments and supplements;

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

HAVING ESTABLISHED that, from the checks carried out, it emerged that:

i. the website www.ainvestments.eu is available in Italian and has no mechanisms to prevent Italian users from registering;

ii. potential investors are offered the opportunity, subject to registering with the www.ainvestments.eu website and opening of an account via the registration process, to trade Forex and CFDs with indices, commodities, shares, ETFs and bonds as their underlying assets;

iii. in order to place such trades, users must register with the website www.ainvestments.eu - through a procedure that is also available for Italian users beginning from the page https://trading.ainvestments.eu - and open a trading account and deposit relevant funds;

iv. in particular, four types of account are mentioned on the website www.ainvestments.eu , referred to as "standard", "premium", "platinum" and "VIP", depending on the minimum deposit required and the benefits promised;

v. in the "Terms and Conditions" section, the website is attributed to the company "ESOS International Ltd", with stated registered address in the Marshall Islands, and to the company "Kadeky International S.R.O.", with stated registered address in the Czech Republic;

HAVING REGARD TO resolutions no. 20881 of 3 July 2019 and no. 21541 of 15 April 2020, whereby Esos International Ltd, with registered address in the Marshall Islands, and Kadeky International SRO, with registered address in the Czech Republic, were ordered to cease their infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance conducted through the separate websites www.ainvestments.com and www.ainvestments.biz respectively;

CONSIDERING that the site www.ainvestments.eu appears to have identical content and graphic formatof the websites www.ainvestments.com and www.ainvestments.biz;

WHEREAS activity carried out through the website www.ainvestments.eu and the relevant page https://trading.ainvestments.eu can be classed as the provision of investment services as per article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as clients are offered the opportunity of opening a trading account and placing buy and/or sell orders on financial instruments;

WHEREAS the aforementioned transactions, carried out through the website www.ainvestments.eu and its relative page https://trading.ainvestments.eu, are ongoing and aimed at Italian investors, insofar the aforementioned websites have resulted also available in Italian;

WHEREAS the company Esos International Ltd, with registered address in the Marshall Islands and Kadeky International S.R.O., with alleged registered address in the Czech Republic, both mentioned on the website www.ainvestments.eu are not authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, insofar as they are not listed on the register maintained by Consob pursuant to article 20 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

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 Stock brokerage firms, EU investment firms, Italian banks, EU banks and non-EU firms";

HAVING ESTABLISHED, therefore, that the operations in question qualify as the professional provision of investment services to the Italian public, in infringement of art. 18, paragraph 1 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD TO the fact that, according to the provisions of article 7-octies, letter b) of the Consolidated Law on Finance - "Powers to counteract abusive practices" - 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. 58/98 carried out through the www.ainvestments.eu website and the relevant page https://trading.ainvestments.eu, consisting in the 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.

5 May 2021

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona