Newly elected Nationalist MEP Therese Comodini Cachia yesterday denied she was working for a firm of lawyers authorised to serve as an agent of the government’s Individual Investor Programme, as claimed by a Sunday newspaper.

“I carry my profession as self-employed and I just rent an office and use the same reception desk,” the MEP said.

“I neither share clients, nor profits or liabilities as we have a separation of estates,” Dr Comodini Cachia told this newspaper when questioned about the report in Illum.

The story questioned her role in view of the fact that she was representing another legal firm that had legally challenged the government’s decision to choose Henley and Partners as the concessionaires of the IIP.

The Nationalist Party had opposed the IIP, otherwise known as the citizenship scheme, due to the fact that it lacked a resi-dency requirement.

Patrick Galea, a lawyer for the firm in question, Saga Juris Advocates, explained that the licence to operate as an agent of the IIP was only granted to a particular lawyer and not to the whole team, who work in complete autonomy from each another.

“This is like a group of doctors whose clinic is in the same building but who operate in complete autonomy,” Dr Galea said, adding that the model was very popular in the UK where it was known as a barristers’ chamber: each member works independently but shares the cost of keeping the building.

Each lawyer had his or her own clients. In this case the IIP licence had been granted to Dr Franco Galea, but this did not imply that the rest of the team including Dr Comodini Cachia were in some way involved, he said.