The Italian Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to five new websites offering financial services/financial products illegally: four websites of illegal financial intermediaries and one website offering financial products without authorization. Prospectus.

In issuing the order, the Regulator utilized the powers granted by the “Decreto crescita” (“Growth Decree”, Act No. 58 of June 28, 2019, article 36, paragraph 2) and Act No. 10 of 8 of February 28, 2020, article no. 4, paragraph 3 bis.

The website targeted by the latest order is:

• “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 pages https://cfd.cryptotradeclub.ltd)
• “Amlight-italiainvestment” (website www.amlight-italiainvestment.net).

These websites are being blocked by Internet Service Providers operating in Italy. For technical reasons, the blocking may take several days to be implemented.

Consob draws the attention of investors to the importance of taking the utmost care in order to make informed investment choices, and to the fact that common sense actions are essential to protect their savings: these include, in the case of websites offering financial services, checking in advance that their operators are authorized to make their investments and, in the case of financial product offerings, that the prospectus has been published.

Consob regularly adds more entities to the list of blocked sites. At the beginning of April, it blocked seven unauthorized investment sites. Since July 2019, when Consob was empowered to order the blocking of fraudulent financial intermediary websites, the number of blocked websites has risen to 1,065.