Nexia BT's Brian Tonna said today that he does not know whether HSBC Malta held an investigation into information reports issued by the closed Attard Branch on behalf of OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Kasco's General Manager Malcolm Scerri.
Mr Tonna was testifying in a libel case he, along with his business partner Karl Cini, instituted against The Malta Independent’s Pierre Portelli, David Lindsay and Stephen Calleja.
The article was titled: “Panama Papers: HSBC investigation expected into alleged fraudulent documents vouching for Keith Schembri and Malcolm Scerri,” and the libel case also includes its online counterpart. The article read that HSBC Bank Malta was expected to launch an investigation into the use of documents concerning OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and General Manager of Kasco Ltd Malcolm Scerri on a letter head which was expired.
Brian Tonna did not find anything wrong with the title of the article. He admitted that the online version of the article was updated within hours of the denials being sent.
He also admitted that the allegations themselves were made a few days earlier in an article which appeared in a “blog”. He said that no libel against the blog in question was made and that he did not send any denials to it. Daphne Caruana Galizia was the blogger in question. She alleged that information reports for Keith Schembri and Malcolm Scerri were purportedly issued by HSBC Malta’s Attard Branch, which had been closed when the information reports were sent.
Mr Tonna admitted that BTI Management Ltd did request the information reports from HSBC Malta.
Dr Peter Fenech, representing The Malta Independent, said that the reports were sent back to Nexia BT on 27 May 2013, pointing out that this was “just a few days after the general election?”
In response, Mr Tonna said: “possibly, but I don’t understand the relevance.”
Referring to the request for this information sent by Nexia BT, Mr Tonna said it was Karl Cini who had sent the request. He said he believes the person on behalf of HSBC who they contacted was a certain Lawrence Pace, as he was their usual HSBC contact.
It was BTI Management International’s decision to go to the person usually used by Nexia BT.
Mr Tonna argued that the documents which were allegedly fraudulent were not actually fraudulent, and said that this was also confirmed by HSBC.
Asked about the Attard Branch which was closed at the time, he explained that this was the main reason for the whole speculation. He also said that people decided that this was tantamount to fraud without even contacting him. “This is why we are harmed.”
Mr Tonna said that the bank admitted that they made an administrative mistake and said there was no fraud.
Asked whether he asked HSBC for clarification as to why the documents had Attard as their address, he said “no.”
He also said that HSBC did not communicate with him for clarifications following the reports in the press, and neither did he try to communicate with them.
Asked whether the HSBC documents were authenticated, he said “They came from the bank, so we saw them and made use of them,” he said.
Mr Tonna said that he had demanded an apology from the newspaper and gave The Malta Independent time to withdraw the allegations. The Malta Independent’s position at the time was that the article revealed that HSBC would be investigating the matter and not that the allegations were true or false.
Asked whether he believes it was an anomaly for a closed branch to release information reports, he said that the bank should be asked this question. “We received documents through normal practices when asked for references. I don’t stay checking addresses,” he said while claiming that the bank had provided an explanation as to what happened.