Swiss Company That Hired Muscat Had 30% Profit-Sharing Deal With Steward

A Swiss firm that employed Joseph Muscat as a consultant had a secret backdoor agreement to receive 30% of Steward Health Care’s dividends from the hospital deal.

Times of Malta, in collaboration with the OCCRP and the Daphne Foundation, reported that the deal granted Accutor rights to a share of Steward’s profits from its Malta operations.

It also gave Accutor 30% of the equity value if Steward Malta was sold.

The deal was signed by Armin Ernst, who was CEO of both Steward Malta and its predecessor Vitals, in April 2019, one year after the contract passed from Vitals to Steward.

The profits were reportedly intended for Pakistani businessman Shaukat Ali, one of several people who have been charged in the wake of the Vitals-Steward magisterial inquiry.

Emails indicate that, due to “substantial debts”, Steward didn’t pay out any dividends before the deal was scrapped by the Maltese courts in 2023. However, it did pay Accutor over €7 million between 2018 and 2020 for “political consultants”, “jet expenses”, “lobbying” and “payroll services”.

Nine months after the deal was signed, Accutor Consulting owner Wasay Bhatti put Muscat on a €15,000 monthly consultancy and the former Prime Minister reportedly earned €60,000 in total over four months.

Muscat insists the consultancy was completely unrelated to the hospitals deal.

Ali and Bhatti declined to comment to the Times, citing a court-imposed gag order, while Muscat and Steward didn’t respond to a request for comment.