The financial watchdog for Italy, the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), has recently shut down four more websites. This stands part of the regulator’s ongoing, and seemingly endless, crackdown against various firms that illegally promote their respective trading products within the country.
An Endless Stream Of Fraudulent Firms
The Italian regulator has been cracking down against a seemingly endless tide of illegal financial services providers, trying to protect the country’s retail investors by barring access to these sites within the country. It should be noted that no firm is exempt, as even if they have licenses in other jurisdictions, the mandate is to have a license in Italy, and failing to do so will lead to action against the said firm. The irony is that these strict actions against the various unauthorized actors seemed to not even slow down the tide of offshore brokers desperately trying to get a piece of Italy’s online trading business pie.
CONSOB’s latest crackdown sees it follow the steps it’s done many times before: Contacting the various internet service providers (ISPs) of Italy and mandating that they block the sites in question. As for the sites themselves, this time around, they are: Kiqiwk Holdings Intl Limited, Investoomatic Limited, and ADV-Investment. It should be noted that only one of those firms even sounds legitimate, to begin with.
An Executive Power Used to Its Fullest
CONSOB gained the executive power to ban financial intermediaries’ respective websites back in July of 2019, and had been making full liberty of it to push back the tide of firms they deem unregulated. As it stands now, a total of 349 websites have been blocked, and that number will only rise as time goes on.
It should be noted that CONSOB has taken steps to refine the process it takes when identifying companies that are non-compliant. It stands as the only regulator within the EU that uses this approach of blocking scam and unauthorized provider websites outright from its country.
Regulated Firms From Other Countries Are Not Safe Either
One of its more prominent actions is actually moving against a handful of brokers that sport licenses from CySEC, but deemed it unneeded to consult CONSOB. The regulator ordered the firms in question to cease operations within the country, preventing Cypriot intermediaries from soliciting Italian clients or even continue their already established relations with them.
CONSOB had made a clarification about this matter, citing the Consolidated Law on Finance (TUF) Article 7-quarter, Paragraph 4 as well as Mifid2 Article 86. What this legislation allows CONSOB is the ability to order brokers and firms operating within other member states of the EU to cease their respective operations after they informed the member state’s competent authority. This is stipulated through the passporting regime of the EU.