Italy CONSOB Article 7-octies TUF & Decreto Crescita: ISP Website Blackout Powers

Among all 30 EEA securities regulators, Italy's Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) wields the fastest, most prolific digital domain-blocking weapon in Europe: under *Article 7-octies of Legislative Decree No. 58/1998 (Testo Unico della Finanza, TUF), fortified by Article 36(2-terdecies) of Decree-Law No. 34/2019 (Decreto Crescita, converted into Law No. 58/2019)* and extended to abusive crypto-asset platforms under Legislative Decree No. 129/2024 (Italy's MiCA Adaptation Decree), CONSOB does not need a prior civil or criminal court order to take a website offline! By direct administrative resolution published weekly in its Bollettino, CONSOB instructs every Italian Internet Connectivity Provider (TIM, Vodafone Italia, Fastweb, WindTre, Iliad) to sinkhole DNS and IP routing to unauthorized investment websites within hours—having blacked out more than 1,150 domains since July 2019!

Within our national conduct interventions guide and the national supervision hub, legitimate EEA-passported firms must understand how clone fraudsters, un-registered offshore sister domains, and defective Italian passport mappings trigger catastrophic accidental or intentional CONSOB DNS blackouts!

Legal Architecture of CONSOB's Administrative Blackout Power#

Compare why CONSOB blocks 4 to 8 websites every single week while peer regulators take months in judicial proceedings:

Crucial Trap for Dual-Entity Groups: Shared .com Offshore Routing!#

How can a legitimately licensed EU MiFID II broker (for example, holding a Cyprus CIF or German WpIG charter duly notified on CONSOB's Elenco delle imprese di investimento UE senza succursale) accidentally get its global .com domain blacked out across all of Italy?

• Suppose a brokerage group operates brand.eu (licensed EU CIF on CONSOB's Article 34 register) alongside brand.com (operated by a Mauritius or St. Vincent sister company offering 500:1 leverage).
• If an Italian user in Milan typing brand.com is allowed to toggle an Italian-language interface and open an account with the Mauritius entity (rather than being hard-redirected by IP/residency to the CONSOB-notified brand.eu MiFID entity!), *the Mauritius operator is committing criminal abusivismo finanziario* under Article 18 & 166 TUF—and CONSOB will order every Italian telecom ISP to black out brand.com nationwide**, triggering an immediate home-NCA reputation crisis and CySEC Circular C268/C518 inquiry!

CONSOB Permanent CFD & Binary Options Decisions (Resolutions 20975 & 20976)#

For properly authorized Italian banks (such as peers of UniCredit), Italian SIMs, and EEA passported firms (CAPEX.com, 1Market, Bitpanda), CONSOB simultaneously enforces two permanent MiFIR Article 42 resolutions adopted on 20 June 2019:

• Resolution No. 20975: Permanent 100% prohibition on marketing, distributing, or selling binary options to retail investors in or from Italy; and
• Resolution No. 20976: Permanent retail CFD restrictions (30:1–2:1 leverage tiers, 50% per-account margin close-out, per-account Negative Balance Protection, bonus ban, and standardized Italian loss-percentage warnings: "...% dei conti di investitori al dettaglio perdono denaro...").

Modeling Domain-Clone Detection & Italian Geo-Routing Verification#

Legitimate European brokers protect both Italian savers and their own brand equity by running automated daily DNS/Certificate-Transparency (CT) clone scanners and hard .it / Italian-IP geo-routing rules:

CONSOB as Europe's Most Aggressive User of MiFID II Article 86 Against EEA Brokers#

Remember too that CONSOB does not hesitate to strike against fully licensed EEA passported firms: when Cyprus-chartered CFD brokers ignored warnings over aggressive Italian call centers and unauthorized tied agents, CONSOB became the first host NCA in Europe to invoke MiFID II Article 86 precautionary powers—prohibiting passported EU firms from onboarding any new Italian clients and shutting down their Italian operations!