Eleventh court decision against fines imposed by the FIAU

The Court has ordered the Financial Intelligence Analyses Unit (FIAU) to return €133,148 to a company that the watchdog illegally fined.

This is the eleventh judgment against the FIAU in recent months.

Following a challenge, Judge Lawrence Mintoff ordered the watchdog to return the illegally imposed fine to Trive Financial Services Malta Limited and to pay €6,000 in moral damages.

The court underlined that the existing laws and regulations governing the FIAU’s processes violated the right to a fair hearing, protected by the Constitution of Malta and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case originated from a compliance visit conducted by the FIAU at AFKX Financial Services Limited in 2019.

In 2022, the company was sold to Trive BV and rebranded as Trive Financial Services Malta. In April 2023, nearly four years after the compliance visit, the FIAU imposed a fine of €133,148.

The new management was only given 30 days to appeal the fine. Still, with no personnel from the previous administration remaining, they opted to pay the fine under protest. This led to the filing of a constitutional case.

The court found that the imposed fine violated the Constitution, which protects the fundamental rights to independent and fair hearings and detailed notification of the offence. The FIAU was deemed to act as judge, jury, and prosecutor in this process.

The FIAU, led by MFSA CEO Kenneth Farrugia, appealed all these court decisions.

One of the main reasons for Malta’s greylisting in 2021 was the FIAU’s oversight and lack of action.