The Brussels File is a small editorial desk that reads public supervisory records and writes down what they say about trading platforms advertised online. It exists because the gap between what such a platform claims and what any authority has recorded about it is usually enormous, and because that gap is measurable by anyone willing to spend fifteen minutes in a database.
Why records rather than opinions
Opinions about trading brands are abundant and nearly weightless. Ratings are sold, testimonials are written by the seller, and an enthusiastic paragraph costs less to produce than a screenshot. Records are different in one respect that matters: somebody other than the promoter had to write them, and that somebody can be asked about them.
So the desk starts from the record and stops where the record stops. If an authorisation exists, we describe what it permits. If a notice exists, we name the authority and the date. If nothing exists, we say that the search returned nothing on a stated date, and we resist the temptation to translate that into a judgement about the brand's intentions, which we cannot see.
Who writes the files
Three people share the work, and their names appear on the files they wrote.
Lieselot Vandewalle runs the register desk. She decides which national and European databases a file has to be searched against before it can be published, and she is the person who writes down that a search returned nothing.
Margit Hallgren reads the warning lists and public notices that European supervisors issue, and tracks how a brand name travels between them.
Anton Brzezicki covers what happens after money has left an account: which authority is competent, how a complaint is routed, and where a route ends because no supervised firm was ever involved.
What the desk does not do
It does not advise. Nothing published here is legal or investment advice, and no file is a recommendation to use or avoid a service: it is a description of what public records contain.
It does not rate. There is no score, no stars and no league table, because a number would imply a measurement we have not made.
It does not accept payment from the platforms it writes about, and it does not sell them a right of reply that a reader could mistake for an editorial position. Corrections are free and are made because they are correct.
It does not publish what it cannot source. Licence numbers, company names, countries of registration, deposit figures and user counts appear in a file only when a document or a register entry supports them. Where that support is missing, the file says so in the unverified list rather than filling the space.
Corrections
Files are written to be corrected. If an entry exists that we did not find, if a company behind a brand is a matter of public record, or if a date on a page is wrong, the contact page explains how to tell us and what happens next.