Aqra bil-Malti
Robert Abela is bragging that he’s engaged top-notch Maltese and international lawyers to recoup the money Labour funnelled to Steward Health Care. How many millions, tens or hundreds, Abela won’t say, but he alone handed over €257 million of our money to them.
Now he’s claiming he’s getting it back. He can forget it.
Steward was forced to admit to a bankruptcy judge in Houston that they owed US$9 billion. Of those, US$1.2 billion are owed in loans, and another US$6.6 billion in unpaid rent on their hospitals.
They owe another billion to their suppliers who were never paid. Steward also owes US$290 million to their employees in unpaid salaries.
Steward is bankrupt. It filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2024.
Ray Schrock, Steward’s lawyer, admitted to Judge Chris Lopez that “the company was always very close to running out of cash”.
This is Labour’s real deal. They were meant to invest €200 million in our health service. Yet their lawyer admitted the company never had any money.
Steward’s situation is dire. It put all its hospitals up for sale to recover money to pay some of the debts. It planned an auction of those hospitals on 28 June. That day came and went, and no auction took place.
Steward was compelled to extend the auction date to 15 July. On the day, Steward pushed the auction back again. “The extension gives everybody time to develop robust bids,” Steward said. In reality, that delay was required because the only bids received were withdrawn.
Optum, one of America’s biggest health providers, is one of those companies that withdrew the bid to buy Steward’s hospitals. Why did Optum drop out? Because the US Department of Justice is investigating Steward for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The Justice Department is pursuing Steward for its part in the “seismic scandal” of our hospitals concession. Steward confirmed it’s being investigated over fraud and corruption in its international business dealings – that’s Labour’s fraudulent concession.
That should strike fear and trepidation into those who colluded with Steward in the industrial-scale looting of our coffers.
What should be even more terrifying for those who orchestrated that concession – Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi – is that Steward announced it “is cooperating with an investigation by the US Department of Justice”. The US has an extradition treaty with Malta.
Laura Cordes, a law Professor at Arizona State University, said: “A lot of eyes will be on that investigation”.
Joseph Muscat will undoubtedly be watching anxiously, biting his nails. “Steward has already had trouble selling its assets, and this will not help matters,” Coordes added.
No company worth its salt wants to touch Steward with a barge pole now that the US Justice Department is investigating it. Steward won’t recoup any money if bidders keep dropping out.
Malta isn’t going to get its money back. Even if the international arbitration Robert Abela keeps bragging about goes in Malta’s favour, Steward has no money to hand over. It’s gone.
It’s gone to Joseph Muscat’s friends. Steward International Head Ralph de la Torre reportedly drew a salary of US$3.7 million in the last year. Nine separate Steward officials were also paid more than US$1 million each in 2023.
Steward paid Shaukat Ali’s family over €7.6 million. Malta CEO Armin Ernst, another of Muscat’s friends, arranged for Shaukat Ali to be paid an additional €80,000 per month as well as equity opportunities.
Ernst himself was paid an annual salary of €400,000 with discretionary company bonuses ranging from €100,000 to €200,000 annually.
Shaukat Ali’s €7.6 million were transacted via Accutor AG, the company that paid Joseph Muscat tens of thousands of euro into his BOV account.
The Boston Globe described Accutor as “a centralised money laundering hub for millions of dollars of payments to former prime minister Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff, his health minister (Konrad Mizzi) and Ali”.
Ernst wrote in an email in August 2019, “We have entered into a consulting agreement with Accutor supporting political and government activities and interactions. Payment is €100,000 euro per month…Ralph (de la Torre) is aware”.
De la Torre is the man who allegedly offered Joseph Muscat a seat on Steward’s board of directors. Ernst is the man Muscat accompanied to Castille to lobby Robert Abela to negotiate a “more bankable” deal for Steward.
De la Torre and Ernst were at the top of the Steward chain of command. They were deeply involved in that fraudulent concession. They were masterminding the collusion behind Malta’s biggest fraud. “Ralph and I shook hands with the two major principles – father and son Ali (referring to Shaukat Ali and his son). We assured each other that we are in this together,” Ernst wrote, “and we will take care of each other”.
“Please remember that without them, we would not even be close to having a shot at Malta, and quite a few of our prospects are tied to their relationships and efforts,” Ernst added.
When the Boston Globe reached out to de la Torre and Ernst, both refused to comment. The Boston Globe also contacted Joseph Muscat. “They did not deliver – whether it was their fault, our fault, a third party’s fault… they did not deliver,” he said.
The only thing Steward delivered were millions of euro of our money into Accutor AG which swiftly passed on payments to Muscat’s bank account for ‘consultancies’. They also delivered millions more to secret intelligence companies to destroy Malta’s deputy prime minister, The Times reported.
Steward owes US$9 billion. They’re under investigation by the US Justice Department. They’re struggling to sell off their hospitals. No matter what Robert Abela says. Malta isn’t getting its money back. Don’t let him fool you.
Our money isn’t coming back but even worse, none of the systems that had been left within those hospitals can be put back in operation! They even removed the radiators from the corridors. I guess some one made some money selling them for scrap metal. There were many systems which could still be operated that have been dismantled. That’s how devious this deal was.
One other issue Malta has to potentially face is the 100 million committed by Konrad Mizzi on behalf of the government if the agreement is nullified by the Courts.
Now this has happened and, in liquidations and bankruptcies, this is an asset which has to be legally recovered by the liquidator/court administrator in reporting the company’s statement of affairs at the date of the ‘liquidation’ and arriving at the available funds for distribution to the stakeholders.
This ‘safeguard’ for Steward signed by the Malta side of the hospitals agreement was the work of either an outright madman or of one so corrupt as to feel sure that he can do whatever is necessary to ensure that his foreign counterparts will never have to worry about legality in their dealings.
Is it the only ‘defence’ that Steward are submitting in their case before the international arbitration tribunal – whatever and whoever that ‘august’ body is and from wherever it deems to have acquired authority even above and beyond a sovereign country’s Courts?
It seems that Malta’s signatory never happened to consider the effects of his actions.
Or did he – hoping (vainly) that he can get away with it?
The august body you refer to is the International Chamber of Commerce, and Malta Govt had signed within the concession contract that disputes would be handled by them in Arbitration. Steward took Malta to arbitration in an attempt to enforce the 100M get-out clause they were given by Konrad. The remit of the case is whether Steward are owed this money or not. ICC do not get involved in criminal cases, only contractual ones, and definitely do not get involved in ‘criminal investigations’.
https://jusmundi.com/en/document/decision/en-steward-malta-limited-steward-malta-management-limited-and-steward-malta-assets-limited-v-republic-of-malta-decision-of-the-emergency-arbitrator-rejecting-claims-raised-by-steward-saturday-1st-april-2023#decision_48504
Only that the side-letter, involving 100 Million Euros of taxpayers’ money, that Konrad Mizzi signed behind the taxpayers’ back, was also shot down by the Maltese Courts when they condemned the Vitals/Stewards deal as being a fraudulent one.
The Maltese Courts are one column of the sovereign Maltese State, as you – and presumably Vitals/Steward – may well be aware!!
yeah. but unfortunately the sovereign Maltese Government signed their right away when they agreed that any commercial disputes would be handled in arbitration by the ICC as a term of the concession contract.
The clauses and side letters of a fraudulent contract cannot be upheld by any court.
I can’t wait for the day when Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi are called up to testify. I don’t know what will happen to the last two if they are to set foot on American soil!
They and family members are denied entry into the US after the State Department sanctioned them in December 2021.
Muscat still has his Diplomat’s passport, so guess he can still get in if he’s brave enough or daft enough to try it!
Denied voluntary entrance in the US yes but this does not impede their extradition to the States once there is Extradition Agreement between the US and Malta.
An extradition treaty between Malta and the USA has been in place since 2006.
If an official approach has to be made by the USA to the Maltese authorities, it would not need too big an imagination to foresee that there will be tip offs and they’ll disappear to their bolt holes where there is no treaty in place for extradition to the USA.
Joseph is not listed in the US State Department notice https://www.state.gov/public-designation-of-former-maltese-public-officials-konrad-mizzi-and-keith-schembri-due-to-involvement-in-significant-corruption/, however it doesn’t take much to associate Konrad Mizzi And Keith Schembri to their boss. Joseph Muscat was either complicit or mind-numbingly naive and wholly trusting on those two individuals. Considering he put them in the places of power to begin with, he would then the be charged with also being an extremely poor judge of character. Again he doesn’t strike anyone as the latter.
Why not the three of them? To my mind Muscat was the prime mover. Nothing moved without him.
Let’s take a close look at who is supporting Joseph Muscat and his cronies, for example. Let’s take a close look at who is burning their hand in court for this person.
Let’s listen carefully to who is protecting him and his cronies and then see why they did it. Even if we only get a fraction of our money back, the mafia branch will be destroyed. Hopefully for ever.
It is probably not a coincidence that the US authorities are taking a particular interest in the events unfolding in Malta, when the State Department sanctioned Mizzi and Schembri in December 2021 citing “ credible evidence” of significant corruption which undermined public confidence in the Maltese authorities ability to uphold the rule of law,
….. and yet Muscat is still taking us for a ride going around the globe freely with his diplomatic passport …. are we really going to sit silently and wait for the next general election to take action against this mafia government?
The next general election could well give us the same government. A larger proportion of the population do not read, do not think for themselves and rejoice at the annual E100 cheque claiming that ‘the others gave us nothing’. Even the few who do realise that a number of great frauds were committed against the country console themselves that ‘the others would have stolen more’ and ‘better ours steal it than theirs’.
Malta has never developed beyond a fledgling democracy (if even that). The mentality remains ‘il-laburisti minn taghna, it PN tal-barranin’.
Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela should be made responsible for the financial fiasco for not carrying out proper due diligence on Vitals and Steward Health Care. The Real Deal of Chrtis Fearne was nothing less than theft of taxpayer’s money.
Taken & Secure!!
Has anyone tried to wake up Gafa? Or is he still trying to fit his head into that silly hat of his?
I don’t think so.
He – like the AG – seems to have been lying sore at our expense.
OF COURSE WE CAN GET IT BACK.
ALL THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SIGNING OF THE DEAL AND ALL THOSE WHO VOTED EVERY CONSECUTIVE BUDGET TO GIVE THEM MILLIONS, SHOULD PAY BACK FROM THIER OWN POCKETS THE MALTESE PEOPLE, BECAUSE THEY WHERE WARNED BY THE OPPOSITION.