The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a settlement with Coverdeal Holdings Ltd (a Cyprus investment firm) in respect of transgressions against the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law 2007, which has since been replaced.

The fine is the result of an investigation, the details of which CySEC hardly discusses in its press release. It does mention the following parts of the statue:

• s6(8) regarding the provision of investment services that are stated in the firm's authorising document;
• s28(1), according to which a Cyprus Investment Firm or CIF must, at all times, comply with the conditions under which the authorisation was granted; and
• s36 subs (1) and (1)(a), which relate to the firm's "conduct of business obligations" when providing investment and ancillary services to clients.

CYSEC tentatively portrays the firm's transgressions (or violations, as it calls them) as 'possible,' although the fact that it is fining the firm suggests that they were actual. The firm provides such investment services as the reception and transmission of orders in relation to one or more financial instruments and the granting of credits or loans to financial instruments. Its ancillary services consist of forex services connected to the provision of investment services, the execution of orders on behalf of clients in relation to all financial instruments, and the safekeeping and administration of financial instruments for the account of clients, including custodianship and related services such as cash/collateral management and investment research and financial analysis.

Rather ironically, or perhaps logically because of this looming fine, the annual disclosure and market discipline report which the company published in April states that "the company’s appetite for regulatory and legal and compliance risk is low." It prides itself on "obtaining additional data and information from clients...for the proper and complete understanding of their activities and source of wealth and for the effective management of any increased risk emanating from a particular business relationship or an occasional transaction."

The fine comes to €250,000 (US$284,880). The company has paid the amount (as has been the case for all regulatory fines in the UK since 2011) straight to the Treasury of the Republic and not to CySEC.