Former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi Responds To Paradise Papers Revelations
Former Prime Minister of Malta Lawrence Gonzi has responded to the revelations that a bank he was a director of received a €10 million deposit from an Azerbaijani woman.
Dr. Gonzi, who is attending a conference in Berlin this week, responded to the new revelations in comments to Lovin Malta.
“For the record, I was a non-executive director for a very short period of time starting from the 14th August, 2015 until the date of my resignation on the 26th of April, 2016 (8 months),” he said.
“I joined the Board after consulting MFSA officials who explained that the bank had been instructed to enlarge its board to improve its governance structure. I have no knowledge whatsoever of the deposit mentioned in this article,” he said.
Nemea Bank, which Dr. Gonzi was a non-executive director of, was an online, direct bank that provided services to high net worth individuals around the 31 countries in the European Economic Area.
The bank had gone under administration in 2016 when the European Central Bank had asked the Malta Financial Services Authority to take control of the bank’s assets. The bank subsequently had its license withdrawn by the ECB on the 23rd March, 2017.
Finnish newspaper Yle reported that one of the reasons the ECB had ordered the suspension of Nemea’s bank license was because of an anomalous deposit of €10 million from an Azerbaijani-owned company.
Yle reported that a bank whistleblower had informed the ECB that Nemea was not complying with its terms of licence, raising their suspicions. As a bank that generally dealt in the thousands of euros range, a deposit of €10 million had raised red flags with the authorities.
At the time, Dr. Gonzi was one of the bank’s directors, alongside financier Joseph F.X. Zahra, who was also working with a finance commission connected to the Vatican and Pope Francis.
Contacted by Lovin Malta, Kurt Farrugia, Head of Communications for the Government, said that the “Government is not in the business of speculating on former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi. We leave that business in the hands of those who have been gratuitously flogging accusations on Azerbaijan, including the former Leader of the Opposition and his coterie.”
“The Government does not interfere on decisions taken by financial regulators, which are free to make their decisions,” he said.
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