BICAL shareholder files judicial protest against Controller

The owner of the BICAL bank, Cecil Pace, has filed a judicial protest demanding that the controller of his bank, whose licence was suspended in 1972, publish the yearly reports for the administration of the BICAL group of companies' assets and the liquidation of its debts.

According to Pace, since the appointment of auditor Raymond Gatt of Gatt Galea & Co to the controllership of his bank, "nothing substantial was made to liquidate and pass on the funds to depositors and close the BICAL case, except to drag his feet and increase his exorbitant fees which add up to thousands of euros, without giving any concrete result to those concerned."

Pace says Gatt works as a part-time controller, and has never filed a detailed report of his work in the past 10 years, while the MFSA has never exercised its powers to have Gatt present a report of his administration.

Depositors of the BICAL bank are still waiting for the remaining 20% of their bank deposits to be paid to them since the bank was put under controllership of the Central Bank in 1972, under the assumed intention that as many assets as necessary were to be sold off to pay the bank's debts before returning all remaining assets and deposits to the BICAL shareholders and depositors.

Forty years on, shareholder Cecil Pace is still waiting for the controller to carry out the final liquidation of these debts.

In his judicial protest, filed against the prime minister and the finance minister, as well as the Central Bank, the Malta Financial Services Authority and Raymond Gatt, Pace is calling for the payment of the final 20% of deposits and for the liquidation to be concluded.

The protest also accuses former prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who was the BICAL controller up until 1984, of having disposed of the companies' assets "in bad faith at ridiculous prices, thrown away and in same cases even given away for free. Additionally, he did not collect the amounts due to the bank and its associated companies, to the prejudice of those concerned, without keeping appropriate records except for some notes in a school copybook, or any record of his controllership."

Pace owned several hotels and companies, which were eventually sold off at giveaway prices by the controllers.

Pace also writes in his protest that Mifsud Bonnici's successor, Emanuel Bonello, amassed substantial fees and compensation for his services to dispose of the assets, without collecting the amounts due to the bank or taking any action against the previous controller over his administration of the company.

"When his service came to an end, Bonello also made no final report of his administration," Pace said.

Pace had filed a lawsuit against Bonello, but in 1995 both sides of the House approved a law that gave all such controllers legal immunity, retroactively for 25 years - thereby covering Mifsud Bonnici's tenure of the BICAL assets.

The law also declared that all pending cases against controllers, such as BICAL's, had to be transferred to an appeals board.

But Pace managed to obtain a Constitutional decision in 2003, that found his right to a fair hearing and effective remedy had been violated, and that all such cases had to be given their due hearing in front of a competent court.

Pace is currently appealing a decision to have his pending cases against the BICAL controller transferred to one judge.

BICAL saga