Resolution no. 23017

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://tcrinvest.net website and its related pages https://account.tcrinvest.net and https://trading.tcrinvest.net

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:

the https://tcrinvest.net website, which is active and available in Italian, offers potential investors the possibility to trade online on the forex market and on CFDs relating to currencies, indices and commodities;

i. in order to carry out such trading transactions, users must access, subject to registering, the reserved area of the https://tcrinvest.net website available, also in Italian, starting from the page https://account.tcrinvest.net and open a trading account; specifically, four types of account are available, known as "Micro", "Argento", "Oro" and "Platino", depending on the minimum deposit required and the benefits promised;

ii. within the reserved area of the https://tcrinvest.net website, there is the function dedicated to the deposit and withdrawal of liquidity on the trading account as well as the link to the specific web trading platform available, also in Italian, at the internet addresshttps://trading.tcrinvest.net;

iii. the https://tcrinvest.net website contains generic references to "Tcrinvest" as well as the email address "support@tcrinvest.net".

HAVING REGARD TO Resolution no. 22958 of 20 December 2023, whereby the order was given to cease the infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance conducted through the separate https://tcrinvest.com website and the relevant https://trading.tcrinvest.com web page;

WHEREAS the website https://tcrinvest.net has a domain that is partially superimposable to the domain of the website, https://tcrinvest.com as well as similar content and graphic format;

WHEREAS the activity carried out via the https://tcrinvest.net website and its related pages https://account.tcrinvest.net and https://trading.tcrinvest.net constitutes the provision of investment services, as referred to in Article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, since users are offered the opportunity via the aforementioned domains to open a trading account and place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS the above activity, carried out via the website https://tcrinvest.net and the pages https://account.tcrinvest.net and https://trading.tcrinvest.net, is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, given that said website is available in Italian, there have been reports of Italian investors being contacted and the absence of a mechanism to block registration by users attempting to register with the website https://tcrinvest.net from Italy/through Italian IP addresses has been noted; in addition complaints have also been received from Italian investors who have reported that they were unable to get back the sums deposited for trading transactions;

WHEREAS the https://tcrinvest.net website and its pages https://account.tcrinvest.net and https://trading.tcrinvest.net could not 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 that the infringement cease";

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://tcrinvest.net and its pages https://account.tcrinvest.net and https://trading.tcrinvest.net 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.

20 February 2024

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona