Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to six new unauthorised investment websites.
Of these six websites, five are illegal financial intermediation websites and one is a website through which an offer of financial products is carried out in the absence of a prospectus.
In issuing the orders, CONSOB made use of the powers deriving from the “Decreto crescita” (“Growth Decree” Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), relating to the black-out of the sites of abusive financial intermediaries, as well as of the power introduced by the Law no. 8 of 28 February 2020, Article no. 4, paragraph 3-bis, with reference to the black-out of the website through which the illegal offer is carried out.
The websites targeted by the latest orders are:
- “Marketsac” (website https://marketsac.ltd and related page https://platform.marketsac-tp.ltd);
- “FCapital24” (website https://fcapital24.de);
- “FX Future Trading” (website www.fxfuturetrading.com and related pages https://account.fxfuturetrading.com and https://webtrader.chartcandl.com);
- “UfinaCapital” (website https://ufinacapital.cc);
- “Mercantiles” (website www.mercantiles.org);
- “Optimal Yield Limited” (website www.optimalyieldltds.com).
The number of websites blacked out since July 2019, when CONSOB got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries be blacked out, has thus risen to 1019. Last week, the regulator ordered the blocking of five unauthorized investment websites.
The blocking of these websites by Internet service providers operating on Italian territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the black-out to be implemented.
