The Malta Financial Services Authority is currently monitoring the situation surrounding American entrepreneur Julie Meyer, the founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital, after the courts issued a garnishee order of €59,600 against Meyer following a claim by a Naxxar-based web development firm.

The Times of Malta, which initially reported the claim last week, also revealed that Meyer’s company – a venture capital firm – is facing a court application of its own after an employee claimed that he was owed three months’ wages and was seeking €7,500.

It has been reported that the firm, headquartered in London, has a capital worth of £591,889, with Meyer holding between 50 and 75 per cent of the shares, while her assets are worth over £3 million.

The MFSA was also asked whether the authority had carried out adequate due-diligence when providing Meyer’s companies with licences.

“Please note that, when assessing an application, the Authority applies standards of fitness and probity. These standards are applied at the application stage and on an ongoing basis,” a spokesperson from the MFSA told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

Meyer appears to have a long history when it comes to litigation, after The London Evening Standard reported that a former employee, Rachel Lowe, had sued the American entrepreneur for the non-payment of invoices and lost commission, despite Meyer’s attempts to counter-sue for £200,000.

A judge awarded Lowe £64,500, of which £35,000 was in costs, and was only paid once Meyer was threatened with a winding-up order.

At the time of the aforementioned newspaper’s report, dated February 2016, Meyer had still owed Lowe £20,000 in legal fees.

The firm has also faced legal disputes with Kingston Smith, GQ Employment Law and international law firm Nabarro in recent years.

Meyer has become a figure in the Maltese financial industry, after first being invited to speak at a conference in May 2016 by Finance Malta chairman Kenneth Farrugia, the very same month that the previous article had been published.

Meyer would then go on to acquire Portcullis Asset Management, which had been licensed with the Malta Financial Services Authority.

Ariadne Capital’s companies are also licensed by the MFSA.

Meyer organises the Follow the Entrepreneur Investor Summit, where both Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Economy Minister Chris Cardona have been speakers. The event had 50,000 people watching live, 15,000 website visitors and 470 registered investors.

“In order to raise the €1 billion AUM (assets under management) that our investment platform is targeting I decided to host the Follow the Entrepreneur Investor Summit in Malta,” Meyer wrote in an article published in The Times of Malta, “so that large asset allocators such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, large family offices, HNWIs and corporate investors could see the benefits of Malta”.

The summit will be held again in June 2018.

The Office of the Prime Minister has been contacted to provide a comment on the issue but no replies have been forthcoming so far.