Streamcast defaults on €7m promise of sale agreement as debts pile up

Streamcast, the outfit that the Maltese public was told would invest €75 million in the country, has left only a trail of debt behind, now even defaulting on a promise of sale agreement, according to a judicial letter filed in court by private company P&C Limited.

The judicial letter filed by P&C Limited seeks to enforce a promise of sale signed with Streamcast in March 2018 for the purchase of a block of offices in Marsa.

This office block – its entire stock of investment property, was meant to be sold to Streamcast for €7.2m by not later than 8 March 2020, according to P&C Limited’s 2018 financial statements.

Except, as shown by The Shift, and as both Enemalta and Melita have discovered, there’s no one left in Malta to serve notice upon or likely any significant assets in Malta to enforce against. The characters behind Streamcast have disappeared – the result of another deal negotiated by former Minister Konrad Mizzi that has left taxpayers to foot the bill for what is increasingly looking like yet another scam.

Similarly, the companies set up in Malta with minimum share capital also appear abandoned racking up MFSA Registry fines in the process.

P&C Limited joins Melita and Enemalta in trying to recover what now totals over €8m in debts from Streamcast.

Melita has already been awarded a summary judgment for €300,000 in outstanding debt, internet connection fees dating back to when Streamcast was set up.

Similarly, Enemalta is now suing in court to recover over €500,000 in rent arrears, electricity bills and other costs over the same time period.

Streamcast was paraded by the government in 2018 as ‘a major international company’ that would invest €75 million in the launch of an international data centre in Malta. Then Minister Konrad Mizzi even ‘turned up’ in Mumbai for a Streamcast launch.

How Streamcast got the backing of the Maltese government defies logic. An investigation by The Shift stripped the Streamcast deal of the hype and showed a company that came from nowhere, without a data centre, infrastructure, funds, a track record or even a proper website.

Yet, they got a sweetheart deal in Malta, with disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announcing that this investment “re-confirms the progress made through the past few years” and is “yet a seal of approval” for the country under his leadership.

What it looks like now is that it is yet another deal struck under Muscat’s leadership, like Electrogas and the hospitals, in which taxpayers got the short end of the stick.

Instead of the promised investment of €75 million, Streamcast appears to be leaving an ever-growing mountain of debt while so-called ‘investors’ profited from the deal.

The Shift has also shown how the partners of Panama Papers firm Nexia BT covertly invested in Streamcast then sold its operations to third parties, presumably for a neat profit.

It is not clear why Enemalta or Melita did not pull the plug earlier to deal with Streamcast as would be normal practice with any other client. When Maltese citizens default on payments of these essential services, they are immediately notified the service would be cut off unless payment was made within a stipulated time frame. Why was Streamcast treated differently?

Many of the debts relate to fees for rent and services dating back to early 2018, when Streamcast’s data centre was first “launched”, effectively meaning Streamcast got a free ride for two years.

Filings in court by Enemalta also show that it was aware that the “data centre” that it had built for Streamcast was abandoned as early as 11 November 2019.

Yet when The Shift exposed the Streamcast scam the following January, Enemalta joined Streamcast and Nexia BT in attempting to discredit the report… only to file a case in court to recover €500,000 it is owed by Streamcast a few weeks later.

An investigation by The Shift also shed light on Enemalta’s involvement in a corrupt wind farm deal in Montenegro negotiated by Mizzi and again backed by Muscat.