Author: Joe L. White, Jr.
Date: July 01, 2025
Reference: Civil Conciliation Filing re: Nexo AG, Canton of Zug
Preface
This document was originally drafted as an open letter addressed to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). Based on legal advice, it was not published and has remained private until now.
It is submitted here as a public annex to my conciliation filing against Nexo AG to:
- Document my good-faith efforts to resolve this matter through lawful channels;
- Provide contextual evidence of how Nexo AG operated on Swiss soil while escaping meaningful oversight;
- Highlight the broader jurisdictional and reputational consequences of allowing financial platforms to leverage Swiss credibility without regulatory accountability.
This annex does not allege that FINMA is the formal regulator of Nexo AG. Rather, it illustrates the systemic gaps in oversight that allowed the respondent to cause harm while appearing to operate within a trusted legal environment.
Letter Text
To the leadership of FINMA:
Switzerland’s global reputation as a financial safe haven is not self-sustaining. It relies on constant vigilance, transparency, and the courage to confront silent risk. This annex is submitted by a harmed investor whose lifetime savings were lost on a platform that benefited from Swiss jurisdictional presence while operating beyond Swiss regulatory reach.
Nexo AG is a Zug-registered corporate entity that has publicly marketed itself as a “secure, regulated” platform, language which implies oversight under Swiss financial laws despite not holding FINMA licensure or SRO membership under AMLA.
However, neither FINMA nor other Swiss bodies appear to provide oversight of Nexo’s risk practices, leverage structures, or client protection standards. At no point during onboarding, funding, or usage was I informed of the following material facts, each of which would be considered essential under FinSA and Swiss commercial norms:
- My assets were placed into margin-based leveraged structures without informed consent or risk profiling (FinSA Art. 10–12);
- The actual legal authority overseeing the platform resided in the Cayman Islands, not Switzerland;
- The platform’s liquidation logic and data retention mechanisms were not subject to Swiss data retention or transparency requirements (FADP Art. 25–28).
The result is not merely a personal loss, it is the erosion of public trust in Switzerland’s reputation as a hub for serious, safe financial innovation. By exploiting regulatory ambiguity and the absence of direct FINMA oversight, platforms like Nexo AG construct a façade of Swiss regulatory protection, which misleads consumers and undermines the legitimacy of Swiss financial governance.
The claimant submits that the conduct described herein constitutes misrepresentation under the Unfair Competition Act (UCA Art. 3), negligent onboarding and disclosure failures under FinSA (Arts. 8–12), and a structural circumvention of financial supervision, for which accountability and redress are legally and ethically warranted.
This annex is submitted not to assign regulatory blame, but to ensure that no future filings can overlook the policy void in which such platforms currently operate. If Switzerland is to be a home for next-generation finance, then its institutions must act or acknowledge the consequences of failing to do so.
The failure to confront these loopholes invites further abuse of Swiss jurisdiction by offshore entities and places Switzerland’s financial integrity at measurable reputational risk. This filing is not a condemnation, it is a request for structural reflection, statutory enforcement, and preventive reform.
Statement of Intent
This annex is submitted in support of a good-faith civil conciliation request under ZPO Art. 202–204. The claimant asserts that the conduct described herein warrants regulatory attention and damages due to misrepresentation and unsupervised financial intermediation. No proprietary platform information is disclosed, and all references are based on claimant usage, public materials, and industry guidelines.
Disclaimer
This document is submitted in good faith, based solely on the claimant’s personal experience and publicly available facts. No confidential or privileged information has been disclosed. All statements reflect the claimant’s beliefs or recollections unless otherwise indicated. Names of third parties are anonymized or redacted where not publicly implicated. The purpose of this release is transparency, accountability, and resolution not defamation or harm.
Legal Context Note
This annex was authored solely by the claimant as part of a lawful civil conciliation filing under Articles 202–204 of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (ZPO). It does not contain any confidential statements made during the conciliation hearing, nor does it disclose settlement terms or other protected materials governed by ZPO Art. 205.
The annex is based exclusively on:
- Personal experience,
- Publicly available information, or
- Facts the claimant is legally entitled to share.
Its purpose is to document the legal and factual basis for the claimant’s grievance, promote transparency, and serve the public interest where legal oversight may be insufficient.
The annex adheres to Swiss privacy and defamation standards under ZGB Art. 28, the Data Protection Act (DSG), and applicable banking/professional secrecy provisions (BankG, StGB Art. 321).
It is not an official court document, and no information disclosed herein was obtained through the hearing process.