Alpari aims to appeal from Russian c-bank decision to revoke its license

Maria Nikolova

In the face of the fact that the Russian regulator enumerated the violations of the securities law that Alpari Forex has committed, the company says it has no understanding of why its license is revoked.

As expected, soon after the Central Bank of Russia announced it was annulling the Forex dealer licenses of five Russian companies, including local majors like Alpari Forex, Forex Club and TeleTrade, the companies made public their stance on the matter. All state they will comply with the legal requirements. However, all voice their surprise and lack of understanding about what happened.

In its press release on the matter, the Alpari Forex goes even further and says that “the information published on the Central Bank of Russia’s website does not give an understanding of why it intends to revoke the licenses of all companies that are not subsidiaries of banking institutions”.

This is a somewhat weird statement to make given that the regulator enlisted all law violations that the brokers, including Alpari Forex, have committed. Apparently, this is not sufficient for the company.

Furthermore, Alpari Forex LLC says it will “appeal the decision of the regulator in the manner prescribed by law”.

Speaking of detailed reasons for the regulatory decision, let’s note that Russian information agency TASS has reported that the activities of the five companies that were slammed by the Central Bank of Russia yesterday were focused on aggressive advertising and withdrawing Russian clients to foreign jurisdictions. This explanation has been provided by Larisa Selyutina, Head of the Securities Market and Commodity Market Department.

“All companies whose licenses have been revoked are ‘subsidiaries’ of large foreign forex dealers with recognizable brands, operating mainly in foreign forex markets. The decision to revoke is connected with the regulator’s deep concern for enormous risks for Russian citizens from the companies’ activities,” Selyutina was quoted as saying.

“Throughout their work, they used the license of the Central Bank as an advertisement, aggressively involved Russian citizens in the forex market. When they fell for the advertisement, people usually had agreements concluded not with Russian licensed forex dealers, but with one of foreign companies working under a similar brand,” Selyutina added.

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