Nexia says Egrant did not issue bearer shares

Brian Tonna, the managing partner of Nexia BT – whose firm was Mossack Fonseca’s agent when it opened secret offshore companies for Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri – is insisting that a third, mysterious company, ‘Egrant’, has not issued any bearer shares.

One of the great question marks about Egrant is whether this company, opened at the same time in 2013 as Mizzi’s Hearnville and Schembri’s Tillgate, belong to “someone more important” than the former energy minister and the PM’s chief of staff – as Opposition leader Simon Busuttil put it in last week’s Dissett on TVM.

That suggestion refers to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

But Tonna’s claims that he owns Egrant and that the company has never traded remain out of favour with critics, even MEPs who say Tonna’s 1% ownership of this shelf company still hides the 99% ultimate beneficial owner.

That means that while Tonna is the nominee shareholder, the Panamanian set-up allows the holder of bearer shares to take control of the other 99%. That is the real question mark.

The nominate share certificate of Egrant, which Brian Tonna claims has never issued bearer shares to anyone else

Tonna yesterday denied that Egrant had ever issued bearer shares, and said that the only issued share capital was only one share. “I am, and have always been, the beneficial owner of that share.”

Bearer shares have no named holder, which means the physical holder of the bearer share is the actual owner. This is why Egrant remains such a suspicious entity: it permits both nominee and bearer shares, with Tonna holding the 1% nominee share.

A working document produced by the European Parliament’s PANA committee of inquiry has highlighted how secrecy could be ensured by creating a “fog with a chain of ownership through different jurisdictions, assigning nominee directors or nominee shareholders to an offshore company, using bearer shares, nominee shares or trusts among other methods”.

Tonna however said that his nominate share certificate comes with four standard endorsement documents, “printed as standard with every share certificate, which provide the standard format for transferring shares.”

He said that the endorsements are not required in the case of bearer shares, because bearer shares must be transferred to the owner by delivery.

“The endorsement documents are still empty. No one, except for myself is entitled to or has any other beneficial interest in the share capital of Egrant Inc.”

Tonna denied that Egrant had issued bearer shares, and insisted that his own 1% share had not been transferred to anyone. “I never transferred my beneficial interest.”

Nexia turned down an invitation last week to attend a hearing of the PANA committee of inquiry, which in Malta heard Maltese finance minister Edward Scicluna and Konrad Mizzi, as well as journalists, tax authorities, and the police for the views on the Panama Papers and on tax and money laundering rules.

The PM’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, also turned down the invitation, much to the consternation of MEPs who were irked that Schembri was challenging their legal standing.

Last week Tonna insisted that Egrant had not traded, and supplied a letter from the company’s own president Ricardo Samaniego – who acts as a director on countless shelf companies created by Mossack Fonseca and its agents – dated 16 February, 2017, reiterating that Tonna was the company’s owner. Samaniego, through ATC Administrators, is the nominee owner of the sole share issued by Egrant. Samaniego is himself implicated in various scandals related to tax avoidance on various offshore structures created by Mossack Fonseca for people such as footballing ace Lionel Messi.

In written answers to the PANA committee, Tonna and Nexia partner Karl Cini reiterated that Egrant Inc. had been purchased by Nexia BT in July 2013, was a shelf company, was never active and that it had never had any client as ultimate beneficial owner.