In June 2020 IC Markets signed a sponsorship deal with Inter Milan to make the broker the exclusive “sleeve sponsor.”Under the agreement, approximately €14 million was payable to Seria A club over a 3-year period. This was reported by the FX News Group. In October 2020 Inter Milan terminated the agreement. IC Markets is said to have failed to make the promised payments on time and, moreover, the blocking of IC Markets for the Italian market by CONSOB allegedly also played a role in the termination.
No money no honey
According to Italian newspapers, IC Markets wanted to downsize the sponsorship amid the COVID-19 pandemic because of the negative effects. FX Group News assumes that this “excuse” would make no sense as the agreement was signed in June 2020 when the COVID-19 crisis was already a well-known issue.
Anyway, IC Markets of Andrew Budzinski filed a lawsuit against Inter Milan for reimbursement of the €2.5 million already paid. A first hearing on the matter scheduled before the appropriate Milan court is scheduled for April 14, 2021.
Regulatory Enforcement Action
On October 12th, 2020, the Italian regulator CONSOB announced that the website of IC Markets (a/k/a IC Markets Global) operated by the offshore entity Raw Trading Ltd, BVI, will be blocked. CONSOB will block financial services providers and their websites if they are in breach of regulatory requirements through continued violation of the regulatory provisions. CONSOB has already blocked more than 300 websites.
The CySEC Questions
Actually, in the structure of IC Markets (see the FinTelegram report here) IC Markets Global with the Raw Trading should not have been offering in the EU. Within the IC Markets scheme, the Cypriot regulated IC Markets (EU) Ltd. is responsible for this.
In theory, IC Markets should be able to operate in Italy through IC Markets (EU) Ltd and the CySEC approved domain www.icmarkets.eu. However, it would be appropriate for the CySEC to take a closer look at CONSOB‘s decision and ask IC Markets some critical questions. Apparently, the BVI entity Raw Trading solicited Italian investors via its website www.icmarkets.com.
