Hong Kong Securities And Futures Commission Warns Public Of Unauthorised Investment Product Offered By “ATG Algorithm Trade Group”

The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) today warned the public of an unauthorised investment product involving a system to invest in gold contracts for differences named “2023全新智能AI黃金EA自動交易系統” (Product).

The Product has not been authorised by the SFC for offering to the Hong Kong public and is suspected to have breached the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO) (Notes 1 and 2).

The SFC notes that the team of a Telegram group called “ATG Algorithm Trade Group” (ATG) operates the Product and promotes it via public accounts or channels of ATG and its team on Telegram and Instagram.

The Product and its related information were posted on the SFC’s Suspicious Investment Products Alert List on 11 December 2023.

The public is warned against investing in any non-SFC authorised investment products. As these products are not regulated by the SFC, their investors have no or very limited protection and may lose all their investments.

Investigations are ongoing and the SFC will take all appropriate actions where there is any breach of the law.

Notes:

1. The Product displays characteristics of a collective investment scheme (CIS) as defined in section 1 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the SFO. It is an offence under section 103 of the SFO for a person to issue, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, an advertisement, invitation or document which is or contains an invitation to the Hong Kong public to acquire an interest in or participate in a CIS, unless the SFC has authorised the issue or an exemption applies. In general, CIS must be sold by an intermediary licensed by or registered with the SFC. Unauthorised CIS may generally be sold to professional investors only.
2. It is an offence under section 114 of the SFO for a person to carry on, or hold himself out as carrying on, a business in a regulated activity (which will include promoting interests in a CIS) without a licence where required. It is also an offence under section 115 of the SFO for a person to actively market, whether in Hong Kong or from a place outside Hong Kong, to the Hong Kong public any services that the person provides and such services, if provided in Hong Kong, would constitute a regulated activity.