Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to five new websites that offer financial services/financial products illegally: four illegal financial intermediation websites and one website through which an offer of financial products is carried out in the absence of a prospectus.
In issuing the orders, the regulator made use of the powers granted to it by the “Decreto crescita” (“Growth Decree” Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies) and the Law no. 8 of 28 February 2020, Article no. 4, paragraph 3-bis.
The websites targeted by the latest orders are:
- “Luno Invest” (website https://lunoinvest.net);
- Vantage Global Limited (website www.vantage-markets.com and related page https://secure.vantage-markets.com);
- “Capital4it Ltd” (website www.capital4it.io and related page https://panel.capital4it.io);
- Crypto Trade Club Ltd (website https://cryptotradeclub.ltd and related page https://cfd.cryptotradeclub.ltd)
- “Amlight-italiainvestment” (website www.amlight-italiainvestment.net).
The black-out of these websites by Internet service providers operating in Italy is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blocking to be implemented.
Consob draws investors’ attention to the importance of adopting the greatest diligence in order to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviors, essential to safeguard their savings: these include, for websites that offer financial services, checking in advance that the operator with whom they are investing is authorized, and, for offers of financial products, that a prospectus has been published.
Consob regularly adds more entities to the list of blocked websites. Earlier in April, it blocked seven unauthorised investment websites. 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 risen to 1065.
