On 2 November, Italian regulator Consob ordered the black-out of ten new sites illegally offering financial services to Italian consumers. Since July 2019, the Italian watchdog has blocked 542 websites for the Italian market. Consob is currently, unfortunately, the only European regulator that has this power in regulatory enforcement. It would be desirable if other jurisdictions also gave their regulators such authorization to fight scams more efficiently.
Consob has the authority to order black-outs of websites from the “Decreto Crescita” (“Growth Decree”), on the basis of which the Italian regulator can order internet service providers to block access from Italy to websites offering financial services without the proper authorization. Below are the sites Consob has ordered to be blacked out:
- Tradernet Ltd d/b/a UTradeFX with website https://utradefx.uno;
- FMarketX with website https://fmarketx.com;
- Primus Trader with website https://primustrader.com;
- RoyalFX24 with website www.royalfx24.com and its page https://royal24fx.com;
- Allglobalfin Limited with website www.allglobalfin.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 542.
