Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) today issued orders for the blocking of seven more websites that illegally offer investment services to Italian clients.
The list includes five illegal financial intermediation websites and two websites through which an offer of financial products is carried out without a prospectus.
In issuing the orders, the regulator made se of the powers granted to it under the “Growth Decree” (Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies). The piece of legislation allows CONSOB to order the blackout of the websites of abusive financial intermediaries.
The latest set of orders target the following entities:
- UAB Bensela (website www.allfinancialtrading.com and related page https://webtrader.allfinancialtrading.com).
- Felicity Group LTD (website https://unionstock.co).
- Lacari Group LTD (website https://fxcapitalize.com)
- “HCM Group” (website https://hcmgroupfx.com and page https://my.tradingroomstar.com).
- “Lead Secure LTD” (website https://fxdirects.co).
- Leverit Panama SA/Sirio Compliance Trust (websites https://sirioct.com and https://sirioct.com/backoffice/web).
The number of websites blocked since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries be blacked out, has thus risen to 474. Many of these websites offer CFD, FX and cryptocurrency trading.
The implementation of the black-out of these websites by Internet service providers is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blocking to come into effect.
CONSOB updates the list of blocked investment websites on a regular basis. Last week, the Italian regulator issued orders for the blocking of access to five websites, including those belonging to GB Trade FX and Tradobit.
