Tag: Michelle Mizzi Buontempo

A book released in Malta by NGO Repubblika concludes that police officers investigating suspected money laundering at MFSA’s licensed Pilatus Bank were searching for justifications for the decision not to prosecute top bank officials. The author Robert Aquilina exposed how police officers discussed how to justify the decision by Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg not to prosecute Pilatus Bank's former top executives, Antoniella Gauci and Mehmet Tasli.

The scandal-ridden Maltese regulators are apparently trying to settle the filling of the top posts among themselves. The last...

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) just keeps making headlines for the wrong reasons. Shocking court testimony by an MFSA official revealed that two MFSA officials hid documents from the magisterial inquiry into the operations of Pilatus Bank in a safe on the Authority’s premises that was only accessible by two people who are no longer at the Authority. This testimony was revealed on Maltese television by a local NGO President.

The regulatory environment in Malta is different. Very different, indeed. The Maltese online platform Shift revealed that Malta Financial Services Authority (MFS) entered into a questionable arrangement to pay its retired former CEO Joseph Gavin some €65,000 for him to “give a handover” to the new acting CEO, a senior MFSA executive. Gavin stepped down last summer after being absent from work for over a month but was still paid €11,000 per month.

Questions sent to the acting CEO of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), Michelle Mizzi Buontempo, have remained unanswered. Calamatta Cuschieri Investments Services Limited, a MFSA-licensed firm, has been named by a convicted criminal under oath in court, for dishing him out some €500,000 in cash. She was asked whether the MFSA considers such dodgy transactions as legal and if an investigation into Calamatta Cuschieri’s operations is being carried out.

FinTelegram reported that the Irish Joseph Gavin resigned from his post as CEO of the Maltese Financial Services Authority (MFSA). Earlier this month, MFSA announced that Gavin would resign later this year. However, he resigned before the end of the Summer. The Irish lawyer was appointed to the financial regulator in July of 2021 on a package reportedly worth €160,000. The previous CEO, Joseph Cuschieri, has had to leave in disgrace, and the Acting CEO who succeeded him, Christopher P. Buttigieg, is facing lawsuits surrounding his conduct as an MFSA official. A mess!

A Malta-based advisory firm has been charged along with its owners with defrauding clients out of more than $75 million, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced. The company was licensed by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). In a statement, the financial watchdog said it had charged two North Carolina-based executives, Gregory Lindberg and Christopher Herwig, and their Malta-based registered investment advisory, Standard Advisory Services Limited.

The EU member Malta is different in many ways regarding business ethics and regulation. However, even by the low Maltese standards, it is unheard of that a Chairman of a leading national bank carry out private consultancy work. It is even more questionable when this takes place with the regulator's blessing. The Chairman of Bank of Valletta (BOV), Gordon Cordina, received €1.4 million through his companies, E-Cubed Consultants Ltd and E-Cubed iSlands Ltd, for so-called consultancy work since 2013. Maltese media The Shift revealed this.

Malta’s MFSA-regulated investment firm XNT Ltd, part of the Exante Group, has won the first hurdle in its court battle against Malta’s FIAU. After years of the inaction of flagrant abuse in well-renowned cases, the FIAU dished out fines to small firms and continued with its action against top firms. Following media pressure, the FIAU opted to fine some larger firms such as XNT. It has so far failed to publicly take action against the likes of Calamatta Cuschieri despite shocking court revelations.

A few months ago, the Maltese Arbiter for Financial Services ruled that Calamatta Cuschieri Investments Services Limited is guilty of not meeting the relevant obligations. The detailed decision describes how an investor lost more than €100,000 through investments that were suggested to him by Malta's Calamatta Cushieri Investments Services. The company appealed the fine, but on 1st July 2022, the Maltese Courts, through Judge Lawrence Mintoff, confirmed the Arbiter's decision.

In what has been described as a very strange statement, the CEO of Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), Joseph Gavin, is currently indisposed. Eyebrows were raised for a short statement issued by MFSA with no explanation whatsoever. Joseph Gavin, an Irish man, was appointed as MFSA’s CEO on a salary package of around €150,000 per year following the resignation of disgraced Joseph Cuschieri. Further eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Gavin would not be replaced by Christopher Buttigieg, but by Michelle Mizzi Buontempo.

More licensed firms and funds are surrendering their Malta license. The smallest EU country was greylisted in June 2021 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Wood & Company, a Czech Republic-owned company, registered a Malta company in 2006 namely Wood & Company Funds SICAV p.l.c. The company has now voluntarily surrendered its license for one of its sub-funds, namely the Wood & Company Textiles Fund. This fund was operated by Wood Textiles Holding Limited, a Malta-based company that has since been struck off.