Risk & Resilience

Norway's Financial Supervisory Authority has issued a warning against olympus-capitallimited.com, identified as a "clone firm" fraudulently using the identity of a legitimately licensed entity to deceive investors. This follows an original alert from Spain's CNMV, highlighting cross-border coordination among regulators to combat unauthorized financial services providers. Compliance teams should treat this as a high-priority alert for customer protection and fraud prevention screening.

FINRA's September newsletter bundles several action items for compliance teams, including a job analysis survey to reshape the Series 7 exam, TRACE rule amendments improving trade reporting transparency, and three open comment periods on arbitrator rules, communications rules, and best execution guidance. Firms should track multiple mid-to-late September deadlines and prepare for TRF operating hour extensions and the 2027 renewal cycle.

The Norway Financial Supervisory Authority has issued a warning alerting consumers and firms to a clone entity fraudulently using the identity of an FCA-authorized firm under the domain gsbcapital.pro. This is a cross-border replication of a UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warning, highlighting the ongoing risk of clone firm scams targeting investors across jurisdictions. Compliance teams should treat this as an operational and reputational risk alert rather than a new regulatory requirement.

In her keynote at the European Capital Markets Dialogue, outgoing ESMA Chair Verena Ross outlined a vision for the "next chapter" of European supervision centered on simplification, outcome-focused regulation, and deeper EU-level supervisory integration. While not introducing binding requirements, the speech signals the direction of future ESMA policy and the ongoing Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP) negotiations, which compliance teams should monitor closely.

ASIC has cancelled the AFS licence of Redstone Capital Pty Ltd after determining the firm had ceased carrying on a financial services business. This action illustrates ASIC's ongoing supervisory practice of removing dormant or inactive licensees from the regulated population, reinforcing the importance of maintaining active licence status and timely regulatory notifications.

The FCA has issued a warning identifying "Capital Zodiac" as a clone firm fraudulently impersonating authorized firm Zodiac Partners Ltd (FRN 806702). Compliance teams should note this as part of ongoing clone firm fraud trends and ensure customer-facing staff and fraud monitoring systems are updated to recognize and flag related indicators.

ASIC's Report 331 and Consultation Paper 202 examine dark liquidity and high-frequency trading in Australian equity markets, finding no systemic market abuse but identifying areas requiring new rules around dark pool transparency, conflicts of interest, and order size thresholds. Compliance teams at market participants and brokers operating crossing systems must prepare for new disclosure, monitoring, and transparency obligations commencing from May 2013.