Forex news and analysis tagged “Enforcement” on BestForex.io.
CySEC reached a 50,000 euro settlement with SQ Sey, the Seychelles entity behind SquaredFinancial's non-EU business, over authorisation concerns linked to Cyprus. A rare case of a European regulator reaching the offshore layer of a broker group.
CySEC settled with Royal Forex, the operator of ROInvesting, for 270,000 euro in 2020 and a further 120,000 euro later. After two substantial settlements the broker renounced its Cyprus licence. One settlement can be dismissed; two, before an exit, is a pattern.
CySEC fined Leadcapital Markets, the operator of Trade.com, 30,000 euro over failing to act honestly and fairly toward its clients in Romania between 2016 and 2017. A small penalty attached to the largest conduct principle in regulation.
CySEC fined Reliantco Investments, the operator of UFX, 95,000 euro for failing to act in its clients' best interests. Of all the duties a broker carries, this is the most fundamental — and a fine for breaching it is a finding about the character of the firm.
ASIC suspended GFA Capital Markets' AFS licence from 23 July to 18 December 2026 after finding client money mixed with company funds and reporting failures.
CySEC reached a 50,000 euro settlement with Charlgate, the operator of Fxview, over the protection of client funds and order execution in 2024. These are the two areas where a broker's conduct most directly touches a trader's money.
CySEC settled a 270,000 euro case with Depaho, the operator of forex broker FXGM, over failings in how the firm was organised and how it handled clients’ orders, and later moved to suspend the firm’s licence. Execution is where a broker’s conduct touches your money most directly.
CySEC fined FXVC operator Finteractive 100,000 euro over conduct and anti-money laundering shortcomings, and the broker then renounced its Cyprus licence. A fine followed by a voluntary exit is still a warning.
CySEC fined Hoch Capital, operator of iTrader and TradeATF, 260,000 euro over wide compliance breaches, then withdrew its licence. A fine that touched almost everything, followed by the end of the authorisation — here is the full arc.
CySEC fined FXBFI, the operator of 101investing, 150,000 euro in 2022 and a further 50,000 euro for AML failings in 2023, and later withdrew its licence. Two fines across different compliance failures before the licence goes.
CySEC reached a 150,000 euro settlement with forex broker CFI (Credit Financier Invest) in June 2022 over possible anti-money laundering law breaches found in a 2020 inspection. Size does not equal safety, and even big brands have had to settle over the machinery that guards client money.
CySEC fined Magnum FX 150,000 euro over authorisation and licence condition failings for 2019 to 2020, and the broker later renounced its Cyprus licence. A firm that struggled to hold the standard its licence required and ultimately left the regime.
CySEC reached a 100,000 euro settlement with Begin Capital Markets in November 2022, months after a 170,000 euro one. The firm runs ProfitLevel and CapitalPanda. One settlement is an incident. Two in the same year is a pattern.
CySEC fined retail forex broker F1 Markets 150,000 euro over compliance breaches in 2022, following an earlier suspension made at the request of the UK's FCA. A layered record across more than one jurisdiction.
CySEC reached a 120,000 euro settlement with General Capital Brokers in 2022 over failures to meet its Cyprus investment firm authorisation conditions across nearly a full year. A licence is not a trophy on the shelf — and a broker that lets its conditions lapse tells you something important about how it has been run.
Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have warned investors that AvaTrade is not registered to trade in their provinces. What it means.
Germany's BaFin ran a market manipulation and insider trading analysis of NAGA after its shares spiked and fell following the 2017 IPO. The firm said it welcomed it.
CySEC reached a 100,000 euro settlement with ICC Intercertus Capital, the operator of Axiance, over the rules on marketing, distribution and sales of CFDs to retail clients. The way a broker sells is often the truest signal of how it will treat you.
CySEC reached a 40,000 euro settlement with Cyprus broker Exclusive Change Capital over organisational requirement failings assessed for 2021. The sum is modest, but the category is not — organisational requirements are the machinery that keeps client money safe.
Israel's securities regulator fined AvaTrade's local arm ATrade 150,000 shekels over a misleading promotional video used in a marketing campaign. Here is the detail.
In 2024 Key Way Group, owner of CAPEX.com, took about 75 percent of NAGA in a reverse merger, issuing 170 million new shares and heavily diluting existing holders.
ASIC cancelled the Australian financial services licence of CFD broker Velos Global Markets in 2025 after the firm stopped providing services under it from around May 2024. Regulated once is not the same as regulated now.
CySEC withdrew the licence of Itrade Global, the company behind retail trading brands TradedWell and InvestFW, in 2025 — two years after a one million euro fine over its Spanish tied agent. A licence renunciation looks tidy on its own. Read in full, it is the last chapter of a bad story.
The Cyprus regulator has suspended in full the licence of Triangleview Investments, the firm behind the retail trading brand 3anglefx, over money laundering failures and deficiencies in the way the company was run. It is not the first time this broker has been in the regulator's sights.
Israel's securities regulator fined AvaTrade's local arm ATrade 500,000 shekels, plus a conditional fine, over providing services it was not licensed to give. Full detail.
NAGA cofounder Yasin Qureshi was sentenced in 2024 over the Cum Ex tax scandal, tied to his earlier role at Varengold Bank. He left NAGA in 2019. Full context.
South Africa's FSCA fined forex broker JP Markets 100,000 rand for enabling clients to trade CFDs on forex, shares and indices without proper OTC derivatives authorisation. The question to ask any broker: are you actually authorised to sell me this?
CySEC reached a 200,000 euro settlement with CFD broker Colmex Pro in 2025 over authorisation, organisation, conflicts of interest and client disclosure failings found across a two-year supervisory review. When a regulator settles across four load-bearing compliance areas for a substantial sum, the shape of the case tells you more than the absence of an admission does.
South Africa's FSCA has permanently withdrawn the licence of AfriMarkets Capital after finding it materially broke the country's financial laws, including through the misappropriation of client funds. The firm denies wrongdoing. The case is closely tied to the far larger collapse of Banxso.
AvaTrade settled with the Alberta Securities Commission in 2020 over unregistered CFD trading, paying 30,000 dollars and disgorging 213,428 dollars in revenue.
New Zealand's FMA cancelled Rockfort Markets' derivatives issuer licence in 2024 after the firm contravened eight of its licence obligations. Eight breaches is a pattern, not an accident.
CySEC secured a 225,000 euro settlement from FxNet (FXNET Limited), operator of EMS Brokers and NessFX, over compliance lapses found in a 2021 to 2022 review. It is not the firm's first penalty from the regulator — a pattern worth knowing about before funding an account.
Banxso, the South African CFD broker at the centre of one of the country's largest retail trading scandals, has been placed into final liquidation. A court has declared the company hopelessly insolvent, the regulator has fined it and its directors more than 2 billion rand, and the matter has been referred to the police for criminal investigation.
Belgium's FSMA reached an agreed settlement with AvaTrade's European arm over offering investment products without the required prospectus and unapproved marketing.
CySEC reached a 150,000 euro settlement with NAGA Markets Europe over breaches spanning authorisation, suitability, best execution and product intervention rules.
CySEC fined MCA Intelifunds, the operator of forex broker FXORO, 360,000 euro over breaches of Cyprus investment law found in a 2022 inspection. The machinery that turns the law into practice was missing.
Forex broker FXTM (ForexTime) is giving up its UK FCA licence in 2026, pulling back from the British retail market toward the UAE and Asia. The exit is voluntary — no misconduct alleged. But a UK FCA authorisation is one of the strongest credentials a retail forex broker can hold, and FXTM has now given it up, just as it gave up its Cyprus licence before.
The Cyprus regulator has repeatedly penalised Forex24, a licensed foreign exchange and CFD broker, over its inability to file the regulatory reports every Cyprus investment firm is required to submit. The individual fines are small. The pattern behind them is the part worth reading.
The FCA fined CFD broker FXTB (Forex TB) 276,100 pounds in 2024 for pressuring clients into trading, unauthorised advice and false professional client status. A system designed to reach directly into clients’ pockets.
CySEC fined First Prudential Markets, the Cyprus operator of FP Markets EU, 100,000 euro over a possible breach of article 42 of the European markets regulation and the CFD retail protection directive. The rules at the centre of this case are not obscure technicalities — they are the core safeguards between an ordinary trader and a catastrophic loss.
Australia's markets regulator has secured the largest penalties in its history. A$300.2 million has been ordered against collapsed CFD issuer Union Standard International Group and its two former authorised representatives — EuropeFX and TradeFred — for systemic unconscionable conduct that deliberately targeted inexperienced and vulnerable clients.
HTFX, a retail forex and CFD broker focused on the Far East, has ceased operations around the world. Its main website now shows only a parked domain, the visible end of a collapse that ran through two European regulators before the business finally went dark.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission has permanently withdrawn the licence of Conotoxia, ending a saga that saw the CFD and forex broker suspended for almost a year before the regulator concluded the underlying problems were not going to be resolved.
South Africa's FSCA has provisionally withdrawn the licence of Imermarket — the company behind the InvesaCapital trading platform — after finding it offered contracts for difference without proper authorisation and gave advice that caused clients to lose money.
The FSCA has provisionally withdrawn the licence of Mixirite, the firm behind the UMarketPro and Protea Markets trading platforms, and barred it from conducting financial services business while it investigates alleged high-pressure sales tactics, unauthorised advice, and promises of guaranteed returns.
South Africa's financial regulator has fined QuickTrade ZAR 710,000 — about USD 44,000 — for breaching the country's anti-money laundering rules, the latest in a steady run of enforcement actions against CFD and forex brokers across the region.
Denmark's financial regulator has fined Saxo Bank DKK 313 million — roughly USD 49 million — over failures in its anti-money laundering controls, the bank's largest penalty in years. The failings centred on its white label arrangements, where it provides trading infrastructure to other firms without adequately knowing the end clients behind them.
ASIC cancelled FXOpen AU's Australian financial services licence after finding the firm lacked adequate human resources to provide or supervise its licensed financial services — a failure of governance rather than misconduct.
ASIC cancelled the Australian financial services licence of Prospero Markets Pty Ltd, a forex and derivatives broker now in liquidation, closing a case that began with money laundering charges against its former officers and ended in the Federal Court.
The FCA cancelled XTrade's UK permission after finding the firm had marketed and sold contracts for difference to vulnerable clients who lacked the experience to understand the products. The regulator concluded the firm had failed the suitability and appropriateness tests its own rules required.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission fined IC Markets (EU) Ltd EUR 200,000 after finding the broker participated in activities that circumvented the initial margin protections European rules impose on CFDs sold to retail clients. The firm denies the finding and has begun legal action.
Australia's corporate regulator has cancelled the financial services licence of Trive, a contracts for difference issuer that stopped taking on new clients last year after ASIC found serious deficiencies in how it ran its business.
IronFX, one of the most heavily marketed retail forex brands of the past decade, has settled with CySEC for €100,000 over the rules governing how CFDs are sold to retail clients — under a new name, Notesco.
FOREX.com was fined $700,000 by the NFA after it responded to a trading-platform malfunction by clawing back $2.84 million from customers who had come out ahead — while returning just $35,000 to those who had lost.
Forex CT, an Australian retail forex and CFD broker, was ordered by the Federal Court to pay a $20 million penalty for a system of unconscionable conduct that pressured vulnerable clients into depositing money many could not afford to lose. Its sole director was fined $400,000 and banned for eight years.
OANDA, one of the best-known names in retail forex, was fined $500,000 by the CFTC after repeatedly falling below the minimum net capital it was required to hold — and paying itself three dividends while that restriction was in force.
eToro, one of the world's most recognisable retail trading brands, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle SEC charges that it operated an unregistered broker and clearing agency for crypto assets sold as securities — and will strip its US crypto menu back to just three tokens.
FXCM, once one of the largest retail forex brokers in the US, was fined $7 million and permanently forced out of the American market after the CFTC found it secretly bet against its own customers while marketing a 'No Dealing Desk' platform it claimed had no conflict of interest.
VPR Safe Financial Group, the Cyprus-licensed operator of retail forex and CFD brand Alvexo, has settled with CySEC for €50,000 over suspected compliance failures stretching across eight years — and has since handed back its European licence entirely.
Infinox Capital Limited has been fined £99,200 by the FCA after failing to submit 46,053 transaction reports over six months — a breakdown that left tens of thousands of single-stock CFD trades invisible to the regulator in its first-ever MiFIR enforcement action.
The CFTC and DOJ have charged Celsius Network and its founder Alex Mashinsky with fraud. At its peak, the platform held $20 billion of customer assets — almost none of which was managed as promised.
One employee. 5.5 billion shares. No spoofing or layering surveillance at all. FINRA fined the dominant overnight trading platform $550,000 — but the real number to watch is not the fine.
FalconX settled CFTC charges for $1.8 million after operating as an unregistered futures commission merchant. The verdict on crypto intermediaries claiming to be mere "technology providers" is now unambiguous.
Frank Breuer ran Bluesky Wealth for four years without professional indemnity insurance, misled the FCA about it, then stripped the firm of assets while under restriction. The regulator issued a lifetime ban and a £755,000 fine.
A routine system upgrade in June 2024 silently disconnected Dinosaur Merchant Bank's CFD surveillance. For four months, billions in trades ran unmonitored. The FCA fined the firm £338,000 — but the real question is whether any market abuse moved through the gap.