I have always been amazed by the class of Maltese lawyers and other professionals who you find doing everything at once. These are the individuals whose name pops up in many different and varied sectors and eventually, become so frequent that you get to ask yourself, is this some kind of profession in itself? That is the profession of strategically taking on many different roles at one point in time. Some of these names that come to mind are lawyer, Ian Refalo, a Joseph Muscat favorite for public positions (bizarrely, he is the President of MCAST as well), David Xuereb, the architect and public official who doubles as a lobbyist for the construction industry and previously President of the Chamber of Commerce (recently resigned as OHSA Chairman), and also Peter Fenech, the current President of the Chamber of Advocates.
Peter Fenech is an interesting case. Apart from having a passion for advocating for his profession, he also has a passion for football so he is contesting the role of Vice-President of the Malta Football Association. Peter Fenech is the kind of lawyer who is regularly appointed to chair public entities, and somehow he is good at football management as well. It’s amazing because these kinds of people always seem to have a list of entities they used to run or chair, and none of them have anything to show for except for their legal firm, with a handful of employees and some other lawyers as partners. It’s strange for many reasons also because people in their life, generally do one thing and stick to it, and eventually become very good at it. Not the Maltese lawyers and architects who seem to have good relations with the government. Generally, heads of public entities, or any entity whatsoever, are specialised people in the field, and these kinds of people would generally stay in their field in different leadership positions. Some particular Maltese professionals seem to have raked up a musical chair’s history of leading different things that have nothing to do with each other.
In reality, when you compare the profiles of these professionals together, the common trait you’ll find between them is that they have no direction, or ethical values on which they base their work, so they would accept anything that is asked of them irrespective of the consequences or ethical implications. For them, leading a public entity or sitting as a director to a company is just another paycheque, and basically, public roles are being treated as the equivalent of private directorships; a business very lucrative in Malta after having become a tax haven for many shell companies. Religious conservatives like that fascist priest from Mosta would call this the result of the ultimate decadence of capitalism or whatnot. Fascist hyperbola apart, there is some truth, however, in that the legal profession in Malta is becoming ever more an essential abettor of illegal, unethical, and irregular activity in our society. The shady legal business is ever more becoming normalised and even celebrated. We are after all in a state of affairs where being a successful criminal lawyer is the ultimate dream and ambition for some poor kids from the South.
There are no coincidences to how society is developing and how it is ever more accepting of the unethical and immoral when considering those who are chosen to lead it. I have many questions for Peter Fenech, as he is the right person to be asked about the standards, ethics, and morality of the Maltese legal profession. He is, after all, the President of the Chamber of Advocates, and this question can be framed to him via the case of lawyer Pio Valletta, in which he is also involved.
The case of Pio Valletta
Pio Valletta is the lawyer who defrauded Elnara Shorazova, the wife of deceased Kazakh oligarch Rakhat Aliyev. Pio Valletta defrauded Elnara Shorazova up to 900,000 of which he was forced to return to her after lengthy court battles. Pio Valletta had served as the lawyer of Rakhat Aliyev, who died in an Austrian jail cell in 2015 while his wife was living in Malta.
In her court case, Shorazova recalled that she had transferred 2.4m to Pio Valletta in 2010, with instructions that it should be deposited in a bank account in the name of A&P Power Ltd, a shelf company registered in St Kitts and Nevis. Shorazova and her husband had not yet been named as beneficiaries of the company, and in the following year, it was discovered that Pio Valletta had only deposited 2.2 million. Pio Valletta sustained that the missing 200,000 were his fees.
Eventually, another 700,000 disappeared. Pio Valletta, without presenting any invoices claimed that these were also professional fees. After forfeiting her 900,000, Shorazova filed criminal charges against Pio Valletta. Eventually, Pio Valletta struck a deal with Shorazova whereby he agreed to return 600,000 in return for her dropping the charges against him. Shorazova agreed and Pio Valletta was acquitted of the criminal charges. On 11th July 2017, the court ruled that since Shorazova didnt appear in court, Pio Valletta could not be found guilty.
However, Shorazova, later filed a civil case to ask the court to enforce a private agreement through which she would have forfeited 300,000 of the global amount if the lawyer paid her 600,000 within a stipulated time frame. Mr. Justice Robert Mangion heard how the two had signed a deed in 2012 for Shorazova to recoup the sum of 900,000 payable in installments between July 2013 and July 2018. According to this agreement, Shorazova undertook to waive the remaining 300,000 if the payments were made in a timely manner. Pio Valletta made the payments late so Shorazova filed a request to claim the remaining 300,000.
Pio Valletta counter-argued, saying that his interpretation of the agreement was that if the repayments were not paid according to the stipulated dates, the amount of 300,000 was to be paid to him as payment for his professional services. The court rubbished this line of defence, saying that Valletta had not brought any evidence of professional fees due to him, and therefore, ordered Valletta to pay Shorazova the 300,000 she was due for non-observance of the repayment terms.
Enter the lawyer for all seasons
Pio Valletta had gotten himself into some trouble: he’s a typical example of the greedy village lawyer who, when presented with the opportunity to handle large amounts, gets automatically triggered to steal it. Eventually, he was forced to return it.
The banking transactions took place via Bank of Valletta. Funnily enough, A&P Power Ltd, the company used to channel Aliyev’s funds, changed its name to Zurich Asset Management Ltd with Iuris Management Limited acting as director. The director of Iuris is the same Peter Fenech, today the President of the Malta Chamber of Advocates. Zurich Asset Management Ltd was stuck off and Iuris Management Ltd is being wound up.
The Malta Chamber of Advocates never made a statement about Pio Valletta’s case and, today, he still works as a lawyer with no restrictions. He can handle people’s money once again and without any censure for his actions, it seems that Pio Valletta can be considered like any ordinary and regular lawyer. The problem is that he isn’t: he is a fraud who tried to steal a rich person and abuse her trust, and his behaviour has been normalised and accepted because somehow, luckily enough, he gamed the system to make it all legal.
I find all of this so perfectly understandable. Even in the top leadership echelons of the professional legal class, immoral behaviour is accepted as long as it is legal. The system and clients are there to be gamed and public posts are a means to extend wealth and connections. For these kinds of people like Pio Valletta and Peter Fenech, everything is like a game and nothing has any fundamental sense or value any longer. This is the business of Kafkian rent-seeking, where the law and legal structures, are simply means to extract wealth from anything that is legal or can be legalised.
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