Resolution no. 22797

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 https://tradecare365.com website and the respective pages https://clientzone.tradecare365.com and https://webtrader.tradecare365.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. the website https://tradecare365.com, which is active and also available in Italian, offers potential investors the possibility to trade forex instruments and CFDs on assets such as shares, indices and digital currencies;
2. in order to place such trades, users must register with the website https://tradecare365.com from the https://clientzone.tradecare365.com page, and open a trading account; specifically, four types of account are available, known as "Standard", "Professionale" (Professional), "Business" and "Business Plus", depending on the minimum deposit required and the benefits promised;
3. once the registration procedure is complete, it is possible to access the reserved area of the website where it is possible to deposit cash into a trading account and from which it is possible to access the online trading platform available on the page https://webtrader.tradecare365.com;
4. as to traceability, within the https://tradecare365.com website there are references to "Orionda Financials Ltd" with alleged registered office in the Seychelles and to "TradeCare365 Markets Ltd", without an indication of a registered office, as well as a reference to the mailbox "support@tradecare365.com".

WHEREAS the activity carried out via the https://tradecare365.com website and relative https://clientzone.tradecare365.com and https://webtrader.tradecare365.com webpages, constitutes 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 possibility, via the said domains, to open a trading account and place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS the above activity is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, insofar as the https://tradecare365.com website is available also in Italian, and reports of cold calling of Italian customers have been received, along with complaints from Italian investors; In addition, no mechanism was found aimed at blocking registration with the same domains by users who attempt to register from Italy through Italian IP addresses;

WHEREAS the website https://tradecare365.com and respective webpages https://clientzone.tradecare365.com and https://webtrader.tradecare365.com cannot be attributed to any entity authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, since the companies "Orionda Financials Ltd" and "TradeCare365 Markets Ltd" mentioned on the website https://tradecare365.com do not appear on the register kept by Consob pursuant to Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 58/1998 ("Tuf");

HAVING REGARD to the fact that the provision of investment services and activities is reserved to authorised 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 breach of article 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 breach";

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 https://tradecare365.com and the respective pages https://clientzone.tradecare365.com and https://webtrader.tradecare365.com constituted by the offer 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.

26 July 2023

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona