Towards the end of last year we had reported on a decision taken by the Cypriot regulator, Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), to suspend the license of Cedar Finance due to “suspicions for an alleged violation of the requirements for authorization.” (for the full text of the December 2013 CySEC announcement see our previous story “Cedar finance license suspended by CySEC” )
According to that announcement which was issued on 19 December 2013, the company had one month within which it had to take actions to rectify the situation. However, it appears that two months after the lapsing of this deadline things have not been rectified and therefore on 21 February 2014, CySEC issued a new announcement through which it points out that “the authorisation of the Cyprus Investment Firm, T.B.S.F. Best Strategy Finance Limited, with number 213/13, continuous to be suspended, pursuant to section 26(2) of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law.”
CySEC also highlights that “it is provided that the Company cannot, pursuant to section 26(5) of the above mentioned Law, provide directly or via its website www.cedarfinance.com investment and ancillary services, while the suspension of the authorization is in force.”
In fact, Section 26(2) of the above mentioned Law, specifically states that
“The Commission may suspend a CIF authorisation when there are suspicions for an alleged violation of this Law or/and the directives issued pursuant to this Law or/and the Regulation (EC) No 1287/2006 or/and any other legislation regulating the capital market, that possibly endangers the CIF’s client interests or the investor interests or generally the regular operation of the capital market. In this case, the decision to suspend the CIF authorisation may be taken by the President or/and the Vice-President of the Commission, who shall inform the Commission at its next meeting.”
The fact that so many days have lapsed and Cedar Finance has not yet complied with the requirements of CySEC in order to get its license reinstated enhances the rumours that perhaps the company considers the regulator’s demands as too much of a hassle and it has decided to forgo its license. Interestingly enough however, it has not proceeded with voluntarily renouncing its CIF license and on its website, where access is not possible, the explanation given to visitors is as follows: “Service under maintenance We are under maintenance at the moment and will be back online within a few days. If you are our client, we will notify you by email as soon as we are back. We apologize for any inconvenience. Cedar Finance Team”
It seems that the Cedar Finance people are not so good friends with the truth….In any case, we will continue to follow the story and inform you accordingly. As always, if you have any views or comments, on this or any other story,feel free to share them with us.
