The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has announced that they are suspending Falcon Broker’s broker-dealer license pending the correction of problems within the next month. The suspension notice was made due to what CySEC stated were “suspicions for an alleged violation of section 28(1) of the Law due to the Company’s possible non compliance with the authorization condition provided for in section 18(2)(i) of the Law (‘Operational requirements – Clients’ funds’).”

Co-Mingling Client Funds

While CySEC didn’t provide specific details of the potential violations, 18(2)(i) the Investment Services law states,“When holding financial instruments belonging to clients, to make adequate arrangements so as to safeguard clients’ ownership rights, especially in the event of the CIF’s insolvency, and to prevent the use of a client’s instruments on own account except with the client’s express consent.” As such, violating this rule would mean that Falcon Brokers is at fault for how they are handling client funds.

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In order to prevent misappropriation of client funds, among regulations in place by major financial regulators are requirements for brokers to segregate customer assets into separate accounts. Failure to do such, and co-mingling customer assets with internal broker funds ultimately led to PFG’s owner’s ability to funnel out millions of dollars of client’s money. In regards to Falcon Brokers, the firm has been given one month to fix the alleged violations.

To learn more about CySEC’s suspicions, Finance Magnates reached out to Falcon Brokers for information, but as of publishing time, no one at the firm was available to comment.