Henley & Partners has had a 20-year presence in Malta, MEPs told

Henley & Partners may have become a household name since 2014, when the Labour government unveiled plans to sell Maltese citizenship to wealthy foreigners.

But the company’s presence in Malta spans back two decades, according to what officials from Henley & Partners told MEPs last March.

The interaction with the previous Nationalist administration was primarily linked to a reform of the residence programmes for foreigners.

But the officials noted that there had also been exchanges on a citizenship scheme.

“We have and had a constant interaction with the governments - this one and the previous one - about their residence programmes, and this new government picked up the citizenship idea… We had some interaction with the previous government on the IIP (Individual Investor Programme), but then it was the current government who formalised it,” the officials said.

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The information comes from a transcript of a video conference held on 14 March 2018, during which Henley & Partners officials Christian Kalin, Juerg Steffen and Stuart MacFeeters, replied to questions put to them by MEPs Sven Giegold, Ana Gomes and David Casa. The three MEPs formed part of the rule of law mission that visited Malta last year in the aftermath of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.

The transcript of the session was released on Monday by Gomes.

Lawsuit against Caruana Galizia

The MEPs asked Henley & Partners about the exchange of emails between the company chairman and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his chief of staff Keith Schembri, about a lawsuit it wanted to file against Caruana Galizia.

The slain journalist had published an email that had been leaked to her, showing how Kalin sought permission from Muscat and Schembri to threaten to sue her in London.

Kalin had also addressed the two men informally, with MEPs describing the closeness as “quite striking”.

Henley & Partners had also threatened to sue The Shift News, an anti-corruption portal, in London.

Kalin defended the tone of the email exchange with Muscat and Schembri, insisting that in a small country like Malta it is possible to approach a member of government quite informally.

“We have known them for a long time, and it is not possible to compare relations with the government of Malta to Germany or another big country. Regarding the subject of the email, H&P just wanted to know if it was ok with the government to proceed with a lawsuit because it has public and political implications,” Kalin said.

He added the company had a good relationship with the government and as a concessionaire of the IIP programme, it wanted to inform the government of its actions.

“We would not go ahead with something like that unless we got at least an informal ‘OK’ of the key decision makers,” Kalin said.

Pilatus bank

Asked about the relationship with the owner of Pilatus bank, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, Kalin admitted getting to know him personally because he had been a client but denied any link with the setting up of the bank in Malta.

Hasheminejad had obtained a St Kitts and Nevis passport through a scheme run by Henley in the Caribbean island State.

“There is absolutely no link between us and the setting up of Pilatus Bank in Malta. We did not refer clients to him. At one point, we were approached by Pilatus to collaborate but it never happened. Pilatus Bank contacted us about setting up a scheme for Pilatus to finance, through loans, the acquisition of citizenship in Malta to H&P clients. But this never went through,” Kalin said.

Henley roadshows

Responding to questions on the global roadshows organised by Henley & Partners and to which Joseph Muscat is a regular speaker, the company said the Prime Minister of Malta had no obligation to go to the events.

The contract between Henley and the government stipulates that the government “will ensure to send, whenever requested by the concessionaire, appropriate high-ranking government representatives, or other senior government officials, to speak at the events and represent the programme and the government”.

In his reply, Kalin told MEPs that the contract merely said that members of the Maltese government will support their events, “but there is no specific requirement”.

“The PM is always invited to the events but he only goes when he wants,” he said, adding the company had a strict anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy.

“We sometimes pay expenses of travel for politicians if they do not have a budget for it, but that is all. Sometimes we also pay one or two nights if there is a conference,” Kalin explained.

The transcript also quotes the H&P officials saying that Malta had a 22% rejection rate from 1,101 applications for Malta’s passport programme, which they said had a strong due diligence set up.

Read the full question and answer transcript in the file below.