The designate chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority, Jesmond Gatt, has pledged to discuss whether to publish the findings of an internal investigation into an alleged breach of ethics by the MFSA's former CEO Joseph Cuschieri.
Forrmer chief justice Joseph Azzopardi and lawyer Mark Simiana had been tasked with investigating media reports that Cuschieri and MFSA lead lawyer Edwina Licari travelled to Las Vegas with casino owner Yorgen Fenech, who arranged and paid for the trip. Fenech was later arrested and accused of complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The trip took place in May 2018, just weeks after Cuschieri was appointed to his MFSA role after serving as chief of the Malta Gaming Authority. Licari was senior legal counsel for the MGA at the time.
Cuschieri has said that he did not believe he breached ethics as he had already quit the gaming regulator at the time.
The two MFSA officials later suspended themselves.
The investigation was meant to determine whether Cuschieri and Licari breached their ethical obligations and make recommendations to the MFSA’s board of governors, which will take a final decision concerning both officials.
Gatt was asked during a meeting of parliament’s Public Appointments Committee whether he was prepared to publish the investigation's findings.
“I will raise it at board level but I will also ask for legal advice on the repercussions of publishing it. I am all for transparency but I have to see what implications it could have on confidence in the sector,” he told Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina.
Gatt joined the Central Bank of Malta in 1984. He spent the last three years chairing the board of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit after a previous three years as a board member representing the Central Bank.
He told the committee he left the Central Bank at the end of 2022 to join Malta Government Investments as chief executive officer. He said he approached the ministry about the CEO role when he heard that the previous CEO had resigned.
He disagreed with Aquilina about a potential conflict of interest by keeping both roles, saying that MGI was an investment company where the government was the majority shareholder while the MFSA was a regulatory authority.
Asked about reports that the MFSA was paying its retired former CEO Joseph Gavin some €65,000 for him to give a handover to a new acting CEO, Gatt said he disagreed with such arrangements but could not comment on specifics since he was not privy to the agreement.
At the end of the sitting, Gatt was unanimously approved as the authority’s new chairman. Finance Minister Clyde Caruana welcomed the decision and confirmed the appointment.