The Damocles Sword of regulatory retribution looks set to come crashing down on Polish broker XTB very soon.
On Monday, a court in Warsaw upheld a PLN 9.9 million ($2.5 million) fine that was dished out by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) last September.
In a statement, Warsaw’s provincial administrative court, which upheld the FSA’s fine, said that it agreed with the regulator.
“The [court] completely shared the opinion of the Polish [FSA] that XTB violated the legal order to take into account the best interests of clients,” a court employee wrote.
Unfortunately for XTB, it’s not just the Polish financial regulator that’s coming after them.
Not alone
An investigator from a court in Swidnica, a small city in the south-west of Poland, told reporters at local newspaper Puls Biznesu that police are investigating alleged fraud that took place at the company.
The paper reported on Monday that 283 people have been questioned by police in connection with the case.
According to Puls Biznesu, police suspect that the broker took somewhere between PLN 8 million to PLN 23.5 million from clients.
Finance Magnates reached out to XTB for this article. The broker declined to comment, saying that there was nothing new in the Puls Biznesu piece.
"As a party of a legal claim, and a Stock Exchange -listed company, we will not comment on this matter in public," said XTB spokesperson Anna Drozd. "In our opinion, the issues that appeared in the articles do not bring any new information to the case."
