Updated October 4

A Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) governor’s court action against the former chief executive of the financial services regulator has been withdrawn. 

Joseph Cuschieri, the former chief executive of the MFSA, had been challenged in court in 2019 to explain his “illegal” actions after he sacked a senior official there.

Former Labour justice minister Joseph Brincat, a member of the authority’s board of governors, had, at the time, asked the court to nullify Cuschieri’s decision to sack the  top official “arbitrarily and against the provisions of the law”.

Referring to the sacking of former chief operations officer Reuben Fenech, Brincat had insisted that the decision was taken without any form of consultation with the board of governors and against all internal MFSA procedures.

Times of Malta is informed that Brincat has, through his lawyers, withdrawn the case with Mr Justice Robert Mangion, sitting in the first hall of the civil court, informing the parties to the case through a decree issued on Thursday.

In a letter, Brincat noted that he was no longer an MFSA board member and that he therefore no longer had the necessary legal interest to continue the case.

"I ceded the merits but reserved to discuss on the costs," Brincat wrote, adding that Cuschieri "has taken his case to the Industrial Tribunal and I am informed that I will be called as a witness."

Cuschieri had previously denied that he had offered Fenech financial compensation to leave his job.

But Brincat insisted that the then-chief executive had called Fenech to his office and offered him a package of six months’ pay as compensation to leave at once.

Brincat had insisted that Cuschieri’s decision lacked transparency, accountability and justice.Cuschieri eventually resigned from the helm of the financial regulator in November 2020 after Times of Malta revealed that he had flown to Las Vegas with casino owner Yorgen Fenech in 2018, with Fenech footing the bill.