AMF blacklist removal

Being listed on the AMF blacklist cuts a crypto provider off from its partners and opens the way to having its website blocked in France. No text organises removal: it is negotiated with the AMF, on evidence that the activity no longer targets the French public or that it is now authorised. ORWL Avocats runs that process for foreign platforms and for French players left without authorisation since 1 July 2026.

What is the AMF blacklist?

The AMF (Autorité des marchés financiers, the French financial markets regulator) publishes blacklists and public warnings naming those who offer financial products or services in France without authorisation. One of them lists the websites offering crypto-assets or crypto-asset services without being authorised to do so. Assurance Banque Épargne Info Service (ABEIS), the information platform shared by the AMF, the ACPR and the Banque de France, reproduces it.

Listing is a warning to the public, not a sanction. It often follows a request from the AMF that went unanswered, or was answered unsatisfactorily: take down communications or links, stop soliciting French clients, file an application for authorisation.

Who does the AMF list?

Since 30 December 2024, the MiCA Regulation has required an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP), or the passport of a CASP authorised in another Member State, to serve clients in the Union. The AMF lists in particular:

• the provider established outside France that solicits French clients without authorisation: advertising, influencers, affiliates, a French-language interface, an app distributed on the French app stores;
• the French player that provides services without authorisation, in particular the former digital asset service provider (PSAN) that did not obtain its CASP authorisation before the end of the transitional period, on 1 July 2026;
• the player that suggests, through its name or its advertising, that it is authorised.

The regulation reserves one case: the provider may serve a client who approached it on the client’s own initiative, without offering that client new services. ORWL Avocats analyses this reverse solicitation and also advises foreign providers that want to serve France lawfully, through MiCA passporting or a CASP authorisation.

What are the consequences of being listed?

Listing produces its effects well beyond the AMF’s website:

• banks, payment providers and identity verification providers, bound by anti-money laundering duties, end or refuse the relationship;
• partner platforms, ad networks and media withdraw advertisements and listings;
• the reputation of the project suffers lastingly, because the listing stays visible online;
• blocking proceedings may follow.

The chair of the AMF may give formal notice (mise en demeure) to an operator that provides services covered by the MiCA Regulation without authorisation. The operator has five days to stop and to submit its observations; its hosting providers receive a copy of the formal notice and an order to prevent access to the website. Failing that, the president of the Paris judicial court may order internet service providers to block the website and to put an end to its online promotion (Article L. 621-13-5 of the French Monetary and Financial Code, CMF). The AMF uses this route against websites offering crypto-asset services without authorisation.

We defend operators in those proceedings, as we do on the blocking of websites and apps by the AMF.

How do you get off the AMF blacklist?

No text sets out a removal procedure. The AMF removes a player once it has evidence that the ground for the listing has gone: the activity no longer targets France, or it is now authorised. Our work consists in assembling that evidence and presenting it, in English or in French.

What the AMF expects before a removal

The following measures come up in most matters. How far each is taken depends on the activity and on the facts behind the listing.

The AMF does not settle for undertakings: it tests access from France, checks the app stores and records the communications still online. A solid file anticipates those checks. Compliance does not guarantee removal: the AMF may maintain the listing as long as a doubt remains about the activity in France.

Organising the exit of French clients

The French clients of a listed provider hold assets, sometimes open positions. The AMF examines how the provider treats them: a badly run exit plan harms the clients and compromises the removal.

What the plan covers

The exit plan sets out:

• its scope: clients concerned, holdings and services in progress, presented in aggregate figures;
• its timetable: end of new onboarding, deadline for withdrawing holdings, treatment of open positions;
• how clients are informed, by a clear letter, in French and free of any promotional content;
• how holdings are returned, to an address of the client or to an authorised provider;
• the treatment of unclaimed holdings;
• data retention, within the periods required by anti-money laundering rules and by the GDPR.

The transfer agreement with an authorised CASP

The provider may entrust its French clients to an authorised CASP, which holds their assets until the provider itself obtains an authorisation valid in France. The agreement shows the AMF that the clients remain protected and preserves the commercial relationship. We draft it, or review and negotiate the partner’s draft, on four points:

• the terms on which the clients and their holdings are transferred;
• the retention of the data needed for their return;
• the conditions for resuming the relationship after the authorisation or the passport;
• protections against the partner soliciting the clients.

The clients’ return presupposes an authorisation: a CASP authorisation in France, or an authorisation in another Member State followed by passporting into France.

A former French PSAN without authorisation follows the same logic: the AMF recommended that it draw up an orderly cessation plan by 30 March 2026 at the latest. The firm also advises authorised CASPs that cease their activity, required by the MiCA Regulation to produce an orderly wind-down plan.

Challenging the listing in court

Negotiation remains the quickest route. Litigation is a last resort, but it exists: the Conseil d’État (France’s supreme administrative court) allows warnings and press releases of the AMF that produce significant effects, in particular economic ones, to be challenged (Conseil d’État, Assemblée, 21 March 2016, Fairvesta International GmbH). Three routes are open to the provider:

• a request for reconsideration by the AMF (recours gracieux), which interrupts the time limit for bringing court proceedings;
• an application for judicial review (recours pour excès de pouvoir) before the Conseil d’État, within two months of publication;
• an application for interim suspension (référé-suspension), where urgency and serious doubt as to the lawfulness of the listing justify it.

The grounds relied on are most often an error on the targeting of France, the absence of prior exchanges with the provider, or the disproportionate nature of the measure. The prospect of proceedings also weighs in the negotiation.

Why work with ORWL Avocats?

Since 2018, the firm has advised foreign trading platforms, third-country providers preparing a MiCA authorisation, former French PSAN and Web3 projects before the AMF and the ACPR (Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution, the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority). It has handled several blacklisting matters and deals with the AMF’s departments on a regular basis. It works in English as in French, alongside its clients’ usual counsel, and gives them access to its knowledge of the French market and of its contacts. The firm is ranked in Chambers FinTech and by Leaders League.

A lawyer brings what a consultant cannot: the legal qualification of the targeting of France, professional secrecy over the exchanges describing exposure to the French market, liability for the advice given, and the ability to bring the dispute before the courts.

A partner leads every matter, from the first audit to the removal.