Each must pay €5,000 for the offence.
According to the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the companies’ websites claimed that they could provide “investment services on a professional basis in the Republic”.
However, none held the requisite Cypriot Investment Firm (CIF) licence that would permit them to give such investment advice, as required by Cypriot law in relation to the EU’s MiFID regime.
The Cypriot SEC said a moderating factor in relation to each company’s fine was that though the corporate websites claimed to offer investment services, there was no evidence that in fact any clients had received such advice.
The regulator also highlighted that these web pages are “disputed”. The meaning of this term was not provided in the regulatory notice, though could suggest each firm denies the web pages ever existed.
The SEC explained that in each case the disputed web pages – which it said were in existence in September 2009 – had been changed or no longer existed.
FCP, Ray Lish and Inter-Alliance WorldNet (IAW) are all based in Cyprus’s second largest city, Limassol. OFS Southern Thailand, meanwhile, operates from Chonburi, Thailand.
Further information about some of the companies is limited. The website of Ray Lish & Associates has only one page, with a Post Office box address, phone and fax number listed. No information is provided about the services it offers.
IAW appears to be the largest company concerned, with its website claiming it has in excess of $6bn under management and operations in more than 43 countries.
In addition to a Limassol address on its newsletter, InterAlliance gives its “registered address” in the Isle of Nevis, a tiny Caribbean island.
The company’s website said it was established in 1996 as the first offshore IFA network, then called OFS WorldNet. According to the site, it later merged with Inter-Alliance International to become Inter-Alliance Worldnet.
IAW has been in trouble with regulators before. In August last year it gave an undertaking to the UK’s FSA that it would cease advising on UK pension business after accepting that its authorisation through the EU Insurance Mediation Directive (IMD) did not permit such activity.
The website of OFS Southern Thailand, meanwhile, describes it as being part of a network called GlobalNet. GlobalNet’s website gives no address or phone number, providing means of contact only via email. It gives no indication of where it is based or registered.
In an OFS Southern Thailand newsletter from last October, GlobalNet is described as as a “new name” in financial services, though then describes it as having a history going back thirty years.
Confusingly, GlobalNet’s own website describes its history as going back to the early 1990s. It also explains GlobalNet has representation in 45 countries.
It is unclear whether OFS Southern Thailand shares any links with Inter-Alliance, or did so historically, based on both it and InterAlliance’s forebear OFS Worldnet, sharing the OFS initials.
FCP’s website says the company was founded in the late 1970s as a division of a UK brokerage based in the Middle East, though in 1985 moved its offices to Cyprus. It also says it is a member of the CIFSA, an IFA association, which is in turn a member of Fecif, a pan-European IFA trade and lobbying body.
