Former attorney general Peter Grech, who resigned in the fallout resulting from his inaction to pursue the Panama Papers case, has been awarded a third lucrative contract in a row as a government consultant.

His consultancy for 2022 has just been notified in the Malta Government Gazette.

The contract was given to him for providing unspecified “legal consulting services”.

Grech had received a similar €62,000 contract to provide the same services in 2021, of which last year’s contract appears to have been a renewal.

In reply to questions, the justice ministry said his contract had been renewed for 2023.

“Dr Grech’s valuable knowledge and expertise are still being utilised,” the ministry said.

Grech's 2022 contract was published this week in the Government Gazette. The former AG has had the deal renewed for 2023.

The former attorney general resigned in 2020 following heightened controversy over his reluctance to investigate corruption allegations.

The Shift News later reported that, days after his resignation, Grech was handed a three-month contract paying him €7,000 per month to act as consultant for then-justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis.

Grech’s 2022 remuneration appears to have been double the amount that fellow legal consultants received for providing similar services.

The same issue of the government gazette details how lawyers Paul A. Cachia and Luke Dalli were paid €60,000 and €48,000 respectively to provide “legal services” for two years each.

Grech was paid €62,000 for just one year.

His two-page contract was tabled in parliament after a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina.  It said he was to be paid €35 per hour up to a maximum of €62,000, excluding taxes and VAT, for the provision of “legal consulting services”.

But it supplied few details about what was required of Grech beyond saying he must represent and advise the justice ministry to the best of his ability, respect work deadlines and present the required written submissions in a timely manner as required by the permanent secretary.

Critics are frequently wary of such consultancy contracts because they fear they are handed to people as a quid pro quo or to shut them up. Consultancy work can also require no proof of performance.

Times of Malta asked the justice ministry to explain the rationale behind Grech’s engagement, the discrepancy in the consultancy fees between him and other lawyers and whether the contract has been renewed again this year.

The ministry said that, as already stated in parliament and also reported in the media in June, it had always been clear and consistent on the legal services rendered by Grech.

It said those services were not related to the office of the attorney general.

“Dr Grech is a legal professional with years of experience and served as deputy attorney general for five years and eventually appointed as the attorney general from 2010 till 2020. Dr Grech is also a respectable lecturer at the University of Malta. Therefore, Dr Grech has all the necessary expertise and competence to serve as a consultant within the justice sector,” the ministry said.

Grech was appointed by a Nationalist government in 2010 and retained the role when Labour rose to power in 2013.

He stepped down following an assortment of scandals and calls for resignation that became more vociferous after the 2016 revelation of the Panama Papers.

Shortly before he resigned, Times of Malta had revealed how Grech had agreed with the police that seizing Nexia BT’s servers to gain more information about the Panama companies set up by top government officials Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi would be “drastic and intrusive” – advice that Grech himself later described as “reasonable and responsible”.

He had also advised against sealing off Pilatus Bank in the wake of allegations in 2017 that information could be found within its vaults about former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s link to the secret Panama company Egrant.

That same year, Grech would face the wrath of civil society following the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

He again found himself in the eye of the storm in 2018, receiving heavy criticism for passing on the 1,400-page Egrant inquiry to Muscat within hours of its conclusion.

The attorney general went on to lose a legal battle with then-opposition leader Adrian Delia, with a court ruling he had breached Delia’s rights by failing to give him a copy of the inquiry, which was finally published in December 2019.

Grech had also opposed the removal of former deputy police commissioner Silvio Valletta from the Caruana Galizia investigation.

It was later revealed that Valletta was a close friend of Yorgen Fenech, who is suspected to have masterminded her assassination.

Grech has consistently defended his actions, arguing he always acted within the parameters of the law.