As part of its supervision of information published by issuers, the FSMA has published the following warning.This press release is not available in English. Please consult the French or Dutch site.

The FSMA has today published the first edition of its Congress Columns. The Congress Columns address recent trends in the area of supervision. The first edition is dedicated to the sectors of asset management and of bank savings and investment products. Consult the Congress Columns about asset management (available in Dutch and French only) and banking products (available in Dutch and French only).

The eighth edition of World Investor Week, an initiative of IOSCO (the International Organization of Securities Commissions), was held from 7 to 13 October 2024. The aim of this week was to promote financial education and investor protection. The various initiatives taken by the supervisory authorities in these two critical areas were at the centre of attention.This year’s World Investor Week focused in particular on sustainable finance and crypto-assets. Other topics, such as online investments and the different types of scams they are liable to, were also featured. This thematic week offered yet another opportunity to draw investors' attention to the basic principles of investing without taking undue risks.This initiative was once again supported by the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), the chairman of which is also chair of the IOSCO Board. To mark the beginning of World Investment Week, the chairman took part in the ‘Ring the Bell’ ceremony at Euronext Brussels.The FSMA drew attention to World Investor Week  through its social media and also relaunched its digital awareness campaign on investment fraud and fraudulent offers to direct the public to its financial education website www.wikifin.be, which offers all kinds of useful information and handy tools relating to money matters.Additional information on the campaign (available in French - Dutch only) can be found on wikifin.be.

In connection with CMB's mandatory takeover bid for Euronav NV/SA (presently ‘CMB.Tech’), the FSMA hereby makes public its decision to require that the price be increased by USD 0.52 per share. It also publishes the related orders to CMB to:pay a supplement over the offer price (for the benefit of shareholders who had already accepted the offer during the acceptance period that ran from 14 February 2024 to 15 March 2024); andreopen the offer (for the benefit of shareholders who had not yet tendered their shares) at an offer price which, taking into account the distributions made since the event giving rise to the mandatory offer, currently amounts to USD 12.66.The FSMA considers this publication appropriate to ensure the proper functioning of the market.The full text of the decision can be found here (official version in Dutch, with free translation in French).

The eighth World Investor Week (WIW) will take place from Monday 7 to Sunday 13 October 2024. It is organized by IOSCO, the International Organization of Securities Commissions. The aim of World Investor Week is to promote the education and protection of investors. The various initiatives taken by the supervisory authorities in these two critical areas will be at the centre of attention.The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), whose chairman, Jean-Paul Servais, also chairs the IOSCO Board, once again lends its full support to this initiative. This morning, Mr Servais took part in the ‘Ring the Bell’ ceremony at Euronext Brussels to mark the beginning of World Investor Week. A similar ceremony was held in more than 50 stock exchanges worldwide on the occasion of the WIW.World Investor Week 2024 focuses, among other things, on sustainable finance and crypto-assets. Other topics, such as online investments and the different types of scams they are liable to, are also featured. Within this framework, the FSMA has relaunched its major awareness campaign against online investment fraud.Watch the video message by FSMA and IOSCO chairman Jean-Paul Servais on the occasion of World Investor Week.Additional information on World Investor Week is available on the website www.worldinvestorweek.org.

In January 2022, the FSMA published its handbook on the IDD rules of conduct. The handbook provides explanations of the rules of conduct that apply in the insurance sector. The FSMA has now updated this handbook in order, among other things, to provide greater clarity regarding:the division of responsibilities between insurance companies and insurance intermediaries for the provision of precontractual and periodic information to clients;the principles applicable to storage of the data in the client file.Please see the new version of the handbook (available in Dutch and French only).

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, PUBLISHED IN APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 78 OF THE LAW OF 21 NOVEMBER 2017Trading in the financial instruments of Montea, ISIN BE0003853703, on Euronext Brussels will re-open on 04/10/2024 at 15:30 CET.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, PUBLISHED IN APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 78 OF THE LAW OF 21 NOVEMBER 2017Trading in the financial instruments of Montea, ISIN BE0003853703, on Euronext Brussels is suspended from 04/10/2024 at 8:30 CET until the publication of a press release.

The FSMA is again warning the Belgian public against certain companies suspected of recovery room fraud.Recovery room fraud is a practice whereby fraudsters offer to help victims of investment fraud to obtain compensation for their losses or to recover their lost assets.Generally, the fraudsters contact their victims by phone or by e-mail. The FSMA has noted, however, that victims sometimes come into contact with the so-called ‘recovery rooms’ while conducting internet searches or via social media. When introducing themselves, fraudsters and their companies pass themselves off as law firms or accountants, and sometimes as police services or financial supervisors. The fraudsters do not hesitate to misuse the identity information of existing companies or official institutions in order to appear trustworthy.The fraudsters charge a fee for their services. Victims of investment fraud must pay the fee in advance. This is a clear indication that it is a recovery room. The payment is demanded, for example, allegedly to cover certain administrative or legal costs or to pay taxes. These are purely fictitious costs, however.In some other cases, fraudsters pretend to offer free services. The victim only has to give an access to her computer via a remote desktop application (such as Anydesk). In this way, fraudsters can install spywares on the consumers’ computers or access their PC-Bankings.Fraudsters also sometimes ask their victims to create and activate a wallet on a cryptoplatform.In all cases, fraudsters manage to steal money from consumers. Once the fraudsters have received the fees, they disappear without a trace and it is almost impossible to recover the amounts paid. The FSMA thus advises absolutely against responding to such offers.Companies operating unlawfully and against which the FSMA warns the public are the following:Akin (www.akin.com.co)Bitcity (https://bitcity.cc/ and https://bitcity.ac/)Concord Services (http://concord-services.org/) Ledgible (https://ledgible.io/) Recovery AI (https://recovery-ai.org/)Trade Control (www.tradecontrol.org) World Blockchain Organization (https://uwnbo.info/; euwbo.com)The FSMA recently observed that fraudsters usurped the names of several known entities to deceive consumers. The FSMA has received reports about scammers using the following names:Atomics Wallets, using a website ‘atomicswallets.com’Belton Accounting, using a website ‘https://beltonaccounting.com/’CertikGuardian Limited, using a website ‘https://www.guardianltd.co.uk/’Metatrader 4, Metatrader 5, MT5 Finance using a website ‘https://mt5finance.com’The fraudsters also usurp names of public or control authorities and therefore pretend to collaborate with those authorities in order to give consumers the impression that they are legitimate.***Victims of investment fraud are often targeted twice by the same fraudsters: first the latter perpetrate investment fraud, and thereafter, recovery room fraud. The persons behind the investment fraud may also sell their victims’ contact information on to other fraudsters. Anyone who has ever been a victim of investment fraud needs to be aware that fraudsters may target their victims again or sell their personal data on to others.How can you recognize and avoid recovery room fraud?If you have been a victim of investment fraud, we advise you always to file a complaint with the local police.Be extremely careful if you find an advertisement on social media or the internet, which offers to recover funds you have lost.If you receive unsolicited phone calls with an offer to recover funds you have lost, be sure to ask how that person found out that you have lost money. Reports of fraud are shared only with the judicial authorities and not with private companies.If you are asked to pay a set fee in advance, to access your computer or to activate a wallet on a cryptoplatform, don’t respond but terminate all contact.Financial supervisors such as the FSMA are not authorized to recover lost money and would therefore not take the initiative to contact victims of investment fraud.Would you like to enquire more generally as to whether a transaction being proposed complies with the financial legislation? Please use the search function on the FSMA website. You can also contact the FSMA directly via the fraud contact form.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, PUBLISHED IN APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 78 OF THE LAW OF 21 NOVEMBER 2017Trading in the financial instruments of Nyrstar, ISIN BE0974294267 on Euronext Brussels will re-open on 02/10/2024 at 15:30 CET.

The information on sustainable finance provided on this website has been updated. In the updated section, various elements in the chain of sustainable finance are addressed, in each case with explanations of the objective of certain rules and of the role of the FSMA in their application.This section of the website highlights both the importance the FSMA attaches to sustainable financing and the role played by the FSMA in its development and supervision.Read more ... (available in French or Dutch)

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, PUBLISHED IN APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 78 OF THE LAW OF 21 NOVEMBER 2017Trading in the financial instruments of Nyrstar, ISIN BE0974294267, on Euronext Brussels is suspended from 02/10/2024 at 10:34 CET until the publication of a press release.

Speaking at a New York Climate Week conference, where US President Joe Biden also took the floor, FSMA and IOSCO Chair Jean-Paul Servais met with President Biden and with Michael Bloomberg and called for the rapid implementation of an international framework for climate reporting, along the lines of what currently exists for financial reporting.Jean-Paul Servais, in addition to being Chairman of the FSMA, is also Chair of IOSCO, the global organisation of financial market regulators. IOSCO has over 130 members, which together control 95 per cent of financial markets.As IOSCO Chair, Jean-Paul Servais participated last week in a host of conferences and meetings as part of New York Climate Week. The focus during this week was on climate data and reporting, topics in which IOSCO plays a central role as an international standard setter.The aim is to make climate data equivalent to financial data in terms of quality, consistency and availability. An estimated 130,000 companies worldwide would eventually adopt the new climate data reporting standards.The data could be used by investors, financial institutions, regulators as well as the companies themselves. Checking data quality and information on companies' transition plans towards greater sustainability are also topics IOSCO is currently working on and were discussed in New York.Jean-Paul Servais: ‘President Biden's participation underlines the importance of this New York Climate Week and of the implementation of a global framework for climate data and reporting. Promoting high-quality sustainability reporting is one of the key priorities for IOSCO to protect investors from greenwashing. Since IOSCO announced its endorsement of the first ISSB standards in July 2023, rapid progress has been made globally in implementing sustainability reporting requirements and I welcome this Climate Week's focus on this important topic’.

 The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has published educational documentation concerning the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) for financial entities. This publication addresses the main themes, key concepts and obligations arising from the DORA Regulation. Read more ... (available in French and Dutch)

This press release is not available in English. Please consult the French or Dutch site.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, PUBLISHED IN APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 78 OF THE LAW OF 21 NOVEMBER 2017Trading in the financial instruments of Scheerders-Van Kerchove, ISIN BE0012378593 on Euronext Brussels will re-open on 24/09/2024 at 11:30 CET.

Since the beginning of this year, the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) received nearly 50 percent more notifications of online investment fraud than in the same period last year. More and more people find their way to the FSMA not only to notify that they have become the victim of fraud, but also as a precautionary measure before actually deciding to make an investment. The FSMA steps up its efforts to increase people’s vigilance and to encourage them to notify fraud even faster. This press release is not available in English. Please consult the French or Dutch site.

The FSMA has published an update to its handbook for IORPs on the implementation of the IORP II Directive and EIOPA’s opinions on governance and risk management. This new handbook (FSMA_2024_17) replaces Handbook FSMA_2022_01 of 14 December 2021.The handbook as such was not substantially altered. In some places, a reference was introduced to the new annex on data management (see further). The opportunity was also taken to make some adjustments, among other things, to refer to DORA in the passage about the management of IT and cyber risks, and to adapt the passage about the internal whistleblowers’ procedure in order to take account of the law on the private sector. A new annex (annex 7) on data management was added to the handbook. This annex mainly deals with some specific aspects on which the FSMA made findings during its inspection campaign into data management. It is indeed essential that identification, salary and career data are correct and complete. They form the basis for the calculation of the pension rights of the affiliates and beneficiaries. Securely managing these data is therefore crucial to guarantee an adequate management of the pension liabilities.For the ease of the reader, the content modifications are indicated with a vertical line in the margin.To learn more, please refer to the Handbook FSMA_2024_17 (available in French - Dutch only) of 10 September 2024 for IORPs on the implementation of the IORP II Directive and EIOPA’s Opinions on governance and risk management.

The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has published a new edition of its quarterly dashboard of Belgian public open-ended investment funds, generally referred to as investment funds. The overview presented in this dashboard covers the first quarter of the year 2024.This press release is not available in English. Please consult the French or Dutch site.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, PUBLISHED IN APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 78 OF THE LAW OF 21 NOVEMBER 2017Trading in the financial instruments of Scheerders-Van Kerchove, ISIN BE0012378593, on Euronext Brussels is suspended from 16/09/2024 at 11:30 CET until the publication of a press release.