The Maltese mess around its regulators continues. Most recently, the MFSA was again in the spotlight of scandals. The resignation of short-lived Irish CEO Joseph Gavin caused turbulence because he had apparently received a lucrative agreement to carry out an orderly handover. Something that probably shouldn’t be remunerated separately one would think. The MFSA and the Maltese Finance Minister Clyde Caruana refuse to publish this €65,000 contract, The Shift reports.
The Intransparent Regulator
The Shift revealed that Joseph Gavin, who had stepped down as MFSA CEO last summer after being absent from work for over a month, was still being paid some €11,000 a month by the financial services regulator. Questioned in Parliament by Opposition MP Jerome Caruana Cilia over the state of affairs, Caruana once again brushed off a request for the contract to be published.
All Caruana confirmed was that MFSA had retained Gavin as a consultant for the period between September 2022 and March 2023. Caruana ignored the direct request in Caruana Cilia’s parliamentary question for the contract in question to be published.
Gavin’s contract will expire on 31 March 2023, and he will have been paid close to €65,000 for those services over six months. Gavin is receiving €11,000 a month, only around €2,000 a month less than what he was being paid when he was on the job full-time before retiring. The Shift informed that the arrangement had been demanded by Caruana in order to force Joseph Gavin out of the position.
The MFSA has not yet issued a vacancy to fill the now-vacant position of the former general counsel for the Central Bank of Ireland, who had originally been engaged on a €162,000-a-year contract with a €30,000 allowance for his accommodation in Malta.
The Maltese Money Laundering Issue
Malta was until recently put on the FATF‘s greylist because of its super-relaxed approach to money laundering. A recent EU report outlined how the Italian mafia laundered billions in money through the gambling scene in Malta. The EU, however, apparently continues to watch this chaos patiently. What can you expect from a country where not even the regulators follow the law and international customs?
