CySEC imposes €100K fine on Cyprus investment firm (updated)

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) on Thursday announced its decision to impose an administrative fine of €100,000 on Cyprus Investment Firm BDSwiss Holding Ltd.

According to the relevant announcement, the commission reached the above decision after finding that BDSwiss Holding Ltd “enabled offshore companies with which it was associated, to refer to the CIF’s status, as a Cyprus Investment Firm, to attract clients to whom they offered investment services in CFDs”.

“That was without requiring customers to pay initial margin protection and not giving the necessary risk warning, as it would have to, if the provider was the CIF, avoiding the application of the statutory requirement,” CySEC added.

This comes shortly after the commission handed out a fine of €400,000 on the Cyprus investment firm Goldenburg Group Ltd, for a number of reasons, including infringement of multiple provisions of two distinct laws, as well as failure to establish and implement effective organisational and administrative arrangements to ensure that the interests of its clients were not adversely affected by a conflict of interest.

In addition, earlier this month, the commission reached a €100,000 settlement with a licensed broker, BrokerCreditService (Cyprus) Limited, for market abuse violations.

It should be noted that all amounts paid under settlement agreements are considered revenue for the Treasury of the Republic of Cyprus and do not constitute income for CySEC.

Speaking exclusively to the Cyprus Mail,  the chairman of the commission George Theocharides said that “CySEC has a strong commitment to the responsible growth of the investment sector, underpinned by rigorous supervision to safeguard investor protection”.

“It takes any misconduct by supervised entities seriously and is determined to bring non-compliant operations to a halt,” the added.

“CIFs are therefore urged to ensure that they fully comply with their regulatory obligations,” the CySEC chairman concluded.