On January 24, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it imposed an administrative fine of €3,000 on CIF Atlantic Securities Limited for non-compliance and market abuse. In its notice, CySEC stated that it had imposed such a penalty on the firm following an assessment of the company’s activities. As a result of the inspection, the regulator identified that Atlantic Securities Ltd was non-compliant in its broker’s part in business offerings. According to the regulatory notice, CySEC found that the company did not establish and maintain effective arrangements, procedures and systems for detecting suspicious orders and transactions. Such arrangements, procedures and systems did not take into consideration of the non-exhaustive list of indicators of market manipulations enshrined in regulation 596/2014.
Based on the CySEC website, Atlantic Securities Ltd is a registered Cypriot Investment Firm (CIF). Since 2003, the firm has been authorized to operate business activities by the Cypriot regulator. CySEC’s website has a list of 12 agents tied to Atlantic Securities Limited.
CySEC Is Keen on Market Conduct and Abuse
The development by CySEC comes at a time when the watchdog remains vigilant for any violation by regulated firms under its jurisdiction. The regulator is working with overseas regulators such as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and others in flagging brokers who appear to take advantage of Europe’s passport rule. In July 2020, CySEC imposed an €80,000 fine on Tradernet Limited for some unspecified violations. The agency reached a settlement with CIF Tradernet Ltd for possible violations of The Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2017. Besides that, in July 2020, CySEC ordered all regulated entities under its jurisdiction to implement the Financial Task Force (FATF)-recommended Coronavirus related Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and counter-free financing (CFT) policies. The watchdog issued an official letter to all ASPs, CIFs, UCITS management companies, internally managed AIFLNPs, internally managed AIFMs, internally managed UCITS and AIFMs. During that time, all regulators across the world reported a rise in financial crime by manipulating individuals with the fear of the Covid-19 outbreak. For instance, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority issued warnings due to such an increase in financial crime.
