The Italian watchdog CONSOB is currently the only regulator in the EU with the approach to blocking scams and unauthorized financial service providers’ websites. This is intended to protect Italian consumers and retail investors by making illegal financial products inaccessible. A few days ago, CONSOB blocked another six sites, and thus since July 2019, already 312.
Below are the scam sites and their operators CONSOB has ordered to be blocked as of 26 Oct 2020:
- 4EX7 Ltd and its website www.4ex7.net;
- Hanabishi Partners Ltd and its website https://investactive.io, https://investactive.cc;
- Elevate4x Ltd and its website www.elevate4x.net;
- DBFX Limited and its website www.dbfxtrades.com;
- Golden Dawn (IT) and its website https://www.ctxholdings.com.
The number of sites 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 312.
The Italian regulator availed itself of the new powers resulting from the ‘Decreto Crescita’ (‘Growth Decree’; Law no. 58 of June 28, 2019, article 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), on the basis of which Consob can order internet service providers to block access from Italy to websites offering financial services without the proper authorization.
