The Shift’s FOI forces the MFSA to finally publish damning Cuschieri-Licari report

The Shift News has won an important legal battle against the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and has forced it to publish the conclusions of an internal inquiry that led to the resignation in disgrace of its former CEO Joseph Cuschieri.

After pussyfooting for three years and producing a raft of legal arguments to counter The Shift’s request for a copy of the damning inquiry – carried out by former Chief Justice and current Standards Commissioner Joe Azzopardi and lawyer Mark Simiana – Information and Data Protection Commissioner Ian Deguara last month ruled the MFSA had breached the Freedom of Information Act and ordered it to make the report available to The Shift News by yesterday, 29 March.

The Shift is today publishing the Commissioner’s full decision against the MFSA.

The MFSA, which dug in its heels to cover up its officials’ wrongdoing, yesterday disseminated the closely guarded report to the entire media.

But the authority conveniently hid the fact that it was constrained to do so after a legal battle and an FOI decision in The Shift’s favour.

In his ruling, Deguara dismissed all the MFSA’s arguments aimed at protecting its reputation, Cuschieri and Licari – the latter of whom is still employed at the MFSA on a €100,000-a-year salary as general counsel.

The Commissioner ruled that The Shift was correct to have insisted on the report being made available because doing so was in the public interest. The Commissioner also chastised the MFSA for having resisted publishing the report on two of its top officials.

“The MFSA refusal to provide a copy of the report to The Shift News is not justified,” the Commissioner found.

Commenting on the case, The Shift’s managing editor Caroline Muscat said, “After three years of long-drawn legal battles, The Shift is very satisfied that the MFSA was forced to do what it resisted for years.

“We believe that our public institutions, which we finance through our hard-earned taxes, are there to serve us and not themselves. This is another win for transparency, accountability, and the public interest at large.

“We pledge to our readers that despite the adversity of those who should know better, we will continue to defend the public’s right to information, whatever it takes.”

The inquiry report confirmed various reports published by The Shift that led to the resignation of Cuschieri, a member of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle.

During court proceedings against Yorgen Fenech, who is accused of commissioning the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, it resulted that the MFSA boss and his general counsel Edwina Licari had been on a working holiday in Las Vegas in 2018 with Fenech and Charlene Bianco Farrugia, who was at the time the Office of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri’s personal assistant.

Cuschieri and Licari’s trip had been fully funded by Yorgen Fenech, despite the fact that Fenech was involved in several businesses being regulated by the MFSA top officials.

The report found Cuschieri had breached ethics when he accepted the paid trip.

Licari, however, was let off scot-free because, according to the board, at the time of the trip she was not yet employed by the MFSA and was still working as general counsel at the Malta Gaming Authority.

Cuschieri had moved from the MGA to the MFSA, where he was followed by Licari.

Cuschieri resigned from his €138,000-a-year job at the MFSA on the day the report’s conclusions were presented to the MFSA’s board.

The board then kept the report under wraps for three whole years before it was forced to publish it yesterday after, the MFSA said in a statement, it decided to not appeal the Commissioner’s ruling.

The report confirmed a raft of stories published by The Shift on Cuschieri’s actions at the MFSA’s helm.

These included how he was being paid thousands of extra euros for attending board meetings and to which he was not entitled, how he recruited Licari to the MFSA and even conducted her interview himself and how he had taken frequent trips with his general counsel with the MGA and the MFSA footing the bills.