A decision by the financial services regulator to send a full copy of its report into the Bank of Valletta property fund investigation to all those who complained and to those who the authority feels have an interest was greeted with indignation by Finco managing director Paul Bonello.
The Malta Financial Services Authority's decision to forward the full report comes 24 hours after its chairman Joe Bannister, in an interview with The Times (Business), defended the regulator's decision to only publish the conclusions of the investigation.
Investors have long been asking for the full report to be published so that they would be able to take an informed decision on whether or not to take up the BOV's settlement offer.
However, investors have not yet received the report and given that the weekend is closely followed by a public holiday on Wednesday, Mr Bonello fears that there will not be enough time to go through the contents of the report before the bank's deadline expires on Thursday.
Mr Bonello told timesofmalta.com that the MFSA was ridiculing itself.
"All we have been asking for since day one is for the law to be observed. The MFSA is obliged to pass on a copy of the full report to interested parties."
Finco, which has filed a number of judicial protests on behalf of investors, this evening held a meeting for the property fund shareholders this evening, the second of its kind in as many weeks.
Hundreds of people – mostly pensioners - attended the meeting, at the Catholic Institute in Floriana.
Mr Bonello pointed out that 75 per cent of investors were pensioners and 90 per cent financially illiterate. He stressed that while he believed the bank’s offer was unfair and “disgraceful to the country”, investors had to decide whether or not to take it according to their personal circumstances.
He said hope was last to die and called on BOV, the MFSA and the government to try and find a solution. In fact, he criticised the government for saying it would stay out of the issue since this had social, political and economical implications.
“There is still light at the end of the tunnel... I urge those who want to accept the offer to do so at the last minute,” he said.
“It could turn out that investors have the right to take legal action against MFSA but it is premature to say more at this stage,” he said adding one could do so if they could prove that the regulatory authority had acted in bad faith.
He said the decision as to whether to take legal action against the bank rested with each individual investor
He said he had referred the issue to MEP Louis Grech who was to refer the matter to the Economic and Finance Commissioner.
Two weeks ago, the MFSA published its decision and fined BOV €347,816 for breaching an investment restriction in the La Valette Multi-Manager Property Fund when it invested money in high risk funds contrary to what the prospectus allowed.
The bank said it will appeal the decision but is offering a one-off settlement to buy back the shares and compensate investors at the price of 75c per share.
However, the bank gave investors until June 30 to take up the offer.
This week, BOV snubbed the regulator and ignored a suggestion for the deadline to be extended.
The MFSA has two other pending investigations related to the property fund: the first deals with the marketing techniques used by the bank to sell the property fund, which was intended for experienced investors only; the second deals with accusations that some investors had privileged information that enabled them to redeem their shares just before the bank froze the fund in 2008.