Consob Strengthens Sustainability Reporting and Blacks Out 5 More Websites

The Italian securities regulator, Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob), issued two announcements on Thursday, impacting corporate sustainability reporting and the fight against illegal online financial activities.

In the first announcement, Consob revealed the adoption of amendments to its Regulation No. 11971/1999, known as the "Issuers' Regulation," concerning corporate sustainability reporting. This move follows a public consultation with the market and was formalised in Resolution No. 23463 dated March 12, 2025.

According to the official release, the amendments introduce a new Article 89-quinquies to regulate the procedures for Consob's examination of sustainability reports from listed issuers with Italy as their home member state. This implements the regulatory delegation outlined in Article 118-bis of the Consolidated Law of Finance. Consob stated that this new article will govern "the methods and terms of CONSOB's examination of sustainability reports included in its supervisory perimeter".

Furthermore, Article 81-ter, paragraph 1 of the Issuers' Regulation has been updated to clarify the requirements for sustainability reporting certification. The announcement specified that "the Sustainability reporting certification must be made by the manager according to the specific template No. 3, added to Annex 3C-ter of the Issuers' Regulations". This change is in line with the regulatory delegation contained in the new paragraph 5-ter of Article 154-bis of the Consolidated Law of Finance.

Consob has made the resolution, the explanatory report on the consultation outcomes, and the received contributions publicly available on its website under the "Regulations/Consultations concluded" section.

In a separate announcement, Consob declared a crackdown on unauthorised online financial activities by ordering the blackout of five new websites. These websites were found to be either abusively offering financial services or conducting advertising campaigns targeting platforms operating without the necessary authorisation.

The regulator detailed the breakdown of the blocked websites, stating it had ordered the blackout of "4 illegal financial intermediation websites and 1 website through which an advertising campaign is carried out targeting an abusive brokerage platform."

The specific websites targeted by Consob's blackout order are:

• "Guru4Invest": websites www.guru4invest.com and platform.pltf-tchg.io

• "Sectorcapitals.com": websites www.sectorcapitals.com and clientarea.w1e2b3tr4d3r.com

• "Aifactor Group": website vipaifactorvip.com

• ​"Apollo Trade FX" – "Affidabiletop.com": websites apolloinvestfx.com, cfd.apolloinvestfx.com, and the advertising website affidabiletop.com

Consob highlighted its use of powers granted by the "Decreto crescita" ("Growth Decree") for blacking out websites of abusive financial intermediaries and the "Legge capitali" ("Capital Act") for targeting websites advertising unauthorised platforms.

With this latest action, the total number of websites blacked out by Consob since July 2019 has reached 1252.

The process of blacking out these websites by Italian internet service providers is currently underway, although Consob noted that "for technical reasons, it can take several days for the black-out to come into effect."