Resolution no. 22613

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.fxboxed.com website and its https://account.fxboxed.com 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 24th February 1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance") and subsequent amendments and supplements;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that, from checks on the web, it emerged that:

1. the website www.fxboxed.com,which is active and registered anonymously, offers potential investors the opportunity to trade CFDs on currencies;
2. in order to place such trades, users must register with the website, through a process that is also available to users connecting from Italy, then open an account and deposit relevant funds; specifically, six types of account are advertised on the website, named "Standard", "Silver", "Gold", "Platinum", "Vip Account" and "Retirement Account", which differ, among other things, based on the required deposit. After registration, through a link that redirects users to the address https://account.fxboxed.com, it is possible to log into the reserved area of the website, where there is a specific function to deposit and withdraw funds on the trading account;
3. the "Terms and Conditions" section specifies that the site www.fxboxed.com is reportedly "owned and operated by FXBOXED" based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the website www.fxboxed.com and the respective page https://account.fxboxed.com is deemed to constitute the provision of investment services, as referred to in article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as users are offered the opportunity through the aforementioned domains to open a trading account and place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS such activity, carried out through the website www.fxboxed.com and the respective page https://account.fxboxed.com, is still ongoing and aimed at Italian investors, since said website is available in Italian by means of machine translation systems and complaints have been received from Italian savers reporting that they could not retrieve any deposited funds. Furthermore, no mechanism was found aimed at blocking registration by users attempting to register with the website www.fxboxed.com from Italy via Italian IP addresses;

WHEREAS the website www.fxboxed.com and the relevant page https://account.fxboxed.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 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 unauthorised provision of investment services" - 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 website www.fxboxed.com and the page https://account.fxboxed.com, constituted by offering and providing investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be disclosed to the public through publication in the Consob Bulletin.

This measure may be appealed before the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio within 60 days of the date of service.

1^st March 2023

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona