The Profession - The Objective Financial Consultancy

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The Independent Consultant in Financial Investments can supply the Client with an assistance service, aimed at the reconnaissance of his assets, the engagements and the objectives.

From the result of this inquiry, the Independent Consultant in Financial Investments can also give the Client useful information about the best use of his assets, based on the client's objectives by him suggested, with particular reference to the financial products and tools to use.

The activity of the independent consultant in financial investments is subject to professional secrecy.

The Independent Consultant in Financial Investments, physical person, can supply the Client with an assistant service, aimed at the reconaissance of his assets, the engagements and the objectives. From the result of the inquiry, the Independent Consultant in Financial Investments can provide the Client with useful information about the best use of his assets, based on the objectives by him suggested, with particular reference to the financial products and tools to use.

The independence of the Independent consultant in Financial Investments, described above appoints one of the fundamental differences compared to the Financial Promoter, who, instead, is already able to have the Client sign the investment contracts proposed by his head office: in that sense that, his activity is that of an agent of the intermediary, while that of the Independent Consultant in Financial Investments can be assimilated to that of a free professional who works in all absence of conflict of interests and thus able to give the client a service of objectified consultancy.

The contractual conditions that are proposed concern the activity of the Independent Consultant in Financial Investments, being that of the Promoter which is regulated according to the law, to the directives of Consob and to the directives of the intermediary from whom he received the mandate.

The consultancy in terms of investments in financial products and tools can also be given by persons different from the professional intermediaries. The non-intermediary consultants have to follow the discipline dictated by the common law, while for the intermediary consultant the existing law in the financial intermediation sector applies.
The Consob explained the reason of having a different applicable regime: “the application of the rules of conduct during the performance of the accessory services from the qualified/intermediary authorised subjects is justified considering the superior ability of attracting the public that they enjoy on grounds of their status as supervised operators.”.
For the performance of consultancy given by persons different from the intermediaries, the rules of the civil law apply, and particularly the rules which regulate the fulfilment of the obligations (artt. 1173 e ss. cod. Civ.) the contract in general (artt. 1321 e ss.) and the so-called procurement contracts of services (there where the performance is being exercised in an entrepreneurial way,artt. 1655 e ss. cod. Civ.) or of work performance (in case of exclusively personal activity of the consultant, art. 2222 cod. civ.).

In addition the rules regulating the contracts between the professional and the consumers are applied (artt. 1469-bis e ss. cod. Civ.) and there where the performance is being exercised by persons belonging to protected professions (lawyers, chartered accountants, etc.) also the ethical rules deriving from the professional order which they belong to.

The respect for such ethical rules could, on top of that, be a valid parameter to appreciate the
observance of the special diligence owed by the professional under art. 1176 co.2, cod. Civ, and of the performance of the duty of correctness referred to in art. 1175 cod.civ.