The Sliema businessman who is at the heart of the allegations which caused John Dalli to resign from the European Commission on Wednesday said he was strongly denying wrongdoing on his part.

Reacting to statements made by the Director-General of OLAF, the European Anti Fraud Office, Silvio Zammit said he had never received any payment from the Swedish company Swedish Match or ESTOC (European Smokeless Tobacco Council).

He then added: "My role was that of a lobbyist and my contribution in the matter was above board and regular, in consonance with established practices. Furthermore, I confirm that I was contacted by the foreign party and it was they who set the ball rolling.

But Mr Zammit is not shown as registered on the EU Transparency Register, which lists all officially-recognised lobbyists with the EU institutions.

The list is accessible at http://europa.eu/transparency-register/index_en.htm and there are various Maltese names on it. But Mr Zammit is not on the list. Nor is he registered on the alphabetic list of European Parliament accreditations (http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/listaccreditations.do?reset=&locale=en#en)