€200,000 Tumas ad deal with Labour-linked firm raises party financing questions

Updated at 2:30 pm with parties’ reaction  

Labour Party’s former CEO Gino Cauchi had discussed with Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech a €200,000 ‘consultancy deal’ for marketing and media buying for the Tumas Group.

Cauchi signed off correspondence on the deal as “Gino” for a company formed in 2013 called B.E.D. Limited, which although having no links to Labour was owned by one Samuel Agius Livori, who in the past has worked as a government communications assistant.

Fenech was sent a draft of the 33-month “consultancy” agreement in May 2016 by Cauchi, ostensibly on behalf of B.E.D Limited. No reference to hourly rates or minimum deliverables was made in the draft agreement. Instead, the terms contemplated Fenech paying B.E.D Limited a flat rate of €6,000 per month to act as consultants for Tumas Group.

According to the Times of Malta, at least two invoices for “consultancy services” were sent by B.E.D Limited to Fenech in 2018.

That same year, B.E.D Limited’s registered address was shifted to ONE Production’s Marsa headquarters. The invoices sent to Fenech were made out on that same Marsa address. The address has since changed.

Cauchi has said he did not sign any agreement on behalf of the Labour Party. “I was and still am a very good friend of the person who set up B.E.D Limited,” he said by way of explanation for his involvement in sending the draft agreement.

ONE Productions CEO Jason Micallef did not respond to a request for comment. B.E.D Limited’s marketing material show the company name is an abbreviation of Brand Expo Design. In December 2020, a new company going by the name Brand Expo Design was set up by ONE Productions.

Tumas Group director Ray Fenech said they were unable to trace any such agreement, but said B.E.D limited was used by the Tumas Group for “PR, design, branding and other services”.

Corporate records show ownership of B.E.D Limited shifted from Samuel Livori to accountant Robert Borg in June 2018. Borg, who is the managing partner of audit firm Reanda Limited, was one of three men chosen to sit on the panel that chose the inexperienced Vitals Global Healthcare as the preferred bidder to run three public hospitals.

PN and PL react  

The Labour Party has denied receiving the €200,000 donation, insisting the Nationalist Party has no credibility “to speak” on the subject.  

“In fact, this lack of credibility stems from that revealed by the same media as the PN strategist, which has repeatedly spoken about who went to ask for money from the same people,” it said.  

It also called out the Opposition leader Bernard Grech for “offering” Yorgen Fenech a pardon for his alleged involvement in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case.  

From its end, the PN said it the PL’s denial “means nothing.” 

 “Just like they denied opening secret companies in Panama just after getting elected in 2013, the Labour Party today denied that it is receiving money from Yorgen Fenech,” it said. “But crucially the Labour Party did not deny that it designed a system to receive €200,000 from Yorgen Fenech, after giving him a power station in a corrupt deal that leaves consumers worse off.” 

It insisted that “exponents of the Labour Party have often claimed to barely know Yorgen Fenech, but time and time again they have found to have been lying.”