Julie Meyer has attacked the directors who recently resigned from her MFSA-regulated company within the Ariadne Capital Group amid serious concerns over the company's mismanagement following a recent spate of legal cases in Malta, where she also denied the serious claims being made against her, in spite of the mounting evidence to suggest otherwise; in comments given to The Malta Independent.
Former director of Portcullis Asset Management, the MFSA-regulated company Meyer acquired in 2016, JR Aquilina told The Malta Business Weekly last Thursday; "I confirm that I resigned my position as director of Ariadne Capital Malta Ltd, at the beginning of this month. I have no knowledge of what is going on within the company, and so I do not know what is being done to appoint a replacement director. "
The other director, David Barry, who was also the COO of the same company, resigned at the beginning of September, claiming, it is understood, unpaid emoluments and other payments.
Meyer has claimed that "the Directors of Portcullis Asset Management (Joe Aquilina, David Barry, Karl Strobl) had run their business into the ground, and seemed to profoundly dislike each other. Portcullis had a virus, and I was intent on not letting its ghosts become part of Ariadne. Unfortunately those three came to Ariadne, and I had an enemy within. It has taken me some time to get the whole management team changed."
The development comes after a court issued a garnishee order against Ms Meyer following a claim for over €59,600 by a Naxxar firm that does website design and development.
An employee has also filed a judicial letter in court to recover outstanding wages amounting more than €22,000. A copy of the judicial letter, obtained from court, is being reproduced with this story.
This newsroom also published further information detailed within The Evening Standard which explored the many legal disputes Meyer faced within the UK, including a case involving a former employee, Rachel Lowe, who was awarded £64,500 by a judge for the non-payment of invoices and lost commission, despite Meyer's attempts to counter-sue for £200,000.
The firm has also faced legal disputes with Kingston Smith, GQ Employment Law and international law firm Nabarro in recent years.
The entrepreneur has since pulled out of a panel appearance at the Sigma I-gaming conference, which was held this week, citing her father's terminal illness.
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.
Addressing the articles, Meyer said that "Ariadne Capital has a company policy not to engage with the 'media circus'. Needless to say that there are clear agendas behind some of the recent media."
"We have no liquidity issue. The impression that the media are trying to make is an incorrect one which hurts Malta not Ariadne. Investors coming into Malta who look at these attacks will think twice about investing in Malta. We have plenty of Directors; they are all on our website," she said.
While Meyer did concede that several contractors have not worked out; "This happens," she explained, "where there is a dispute that lawyers are handling, it would be ill-advised for us to comment on matters."
She insisted that the garnishee order did not hurt Ariadne as "we do not bank in Malta due to this medieval, 'guilty until proven innocent' approach," and threateningly, told the newsroom that if high-net worth individuals and investors knew about the garnishee system in Malta, "they would think twice about putting their money in Malta."
Meyer went on to allege that the company who issued the garnishee order against her company, was facing insolvency; and insisted that the €60,000 the company had charged was an incidence of "fleecing the foreigner".
However, it is only Meyer who has a chequered past when it comes to litigation involving either unpaid wages or unpaid creditors.
Surprisingly, Meyer made no mention at all of the aforementioned judicial letter.
After praising her company's supposed 18 year investment history backing and "building explosive growth companies", Meyer said that:
"Ariadne Capital has invested heavily into Malta. The biggest ever investor summit, #FTE2017, in Malta was attended by some of the most significant Investment individuals and companies on their first ever visit here, along with more than 50,000 live stream viewers worldwide via the internet.
"We have raised sufficient capital into Ariadne to build our ECO2 investment platform, and are getting strong interest from investors across the EU.
"We are relentlessly focused on our objectives and being a constructive actor in our ecosystem."