The Italian Consob suspended Arbistar

The Italian Consob issued a suspension resolution against Arbistar. 

In fact, with Resolution No. 21583 of November 11th, 2020, the Italian agency for the supervision of financial markets ordered as a precautionary measure the suspension for 90 days of the public offer of Arbistar 2.0 in Italy through the websites arbistar.com and app.arbistar.com. 

In particular, users registered on app.arbistar.com receive by email a document entitled “Dossier Italiano” which promotes membership of the “Arbistar Club” through an investment promising returns ranging from 5% to 8% per month. 

This is to all intents and purposes an investment opportunity, i.e. an offer to the public of financial products, as defined by art. 1, paragraph 1, letter t) of the Consolidated Law on Financial Intermediation (TUF), and therefore requires the approval of a prospectus by the Consob itself. 

However, Arbistar has never submitted the mandatory communication to the agency in advance, and therefore does not have an authorized prospectus.

Since this means that there is a well-founded suspicion that the promotion of this offer of financial products to the public violates Italian law, and since the offer is still in progress, Consob has decided to suspend it.

Consob suspends Arbistar: what happens now

Arbistar will now have 90 days to resolve the situation, but it is highly unlikely that it will be able to obtain Consob approval of its prospectus.

If it continues to offer these investment opportunities in Italy in this way, i.e. without the approval of Consob, it risks a second absolute prohibition of public offering, as already happened for example to Mind Capital. 

To tell the truth, this is not the first time that something like this has happened, and until now these events have almost always ended with a second prohibition resolution. It is therefore not appropriate to have particularly optimistic expectations regarding the specific Arbistar case. 

Finally, it is necessary to make one thing clear. 

Arbistar is often mistakenly confused with Arbismart because of a very similar name. In reality, they are two different companies, offering different products, albeit in some ways similar. 

Arbistar’s offer was suspended for 90 days by Consob in Italy, while Arbismart’s offer was not subject to any similar measures.