Mario de Marco’s firm provided legal services to Keith Schembri’s companies until 2014

Mario de Marco’s legal firm provided legal services to companies owned by OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri until January 2014, the Nationalist Party deputy leader said yesterday morning.

Dr de Marco was reacting to a story which was published in The Malta Independent print edition, based on answers he gave in an interview for INDEPTH 40 hours earlier and which is being broadcast today.

Asked by The Malta Independent online editor Stephen Calleja whether his legal firm provides services to Keith Schembri and other officials, in the programme Dr de Marco said that he cannot speak about his firm’s clients, adding, however, that he, in his personal capacity, “never provided any such services to these people.”

Yesterday, Dr de Marco sent the following statement to expand on what he had said during the interview conducted on Wednesday afternoon.

“Further to Wednesday’s interview, wherein you asked me whether Guido de Marco & Associates Advocates has ever done or is currently doing any legal work for Mr Keith Schembri or any government officials, I have spoken to the lawyers at the firm and can confirm that:

1. Neither Keith Schembri nor any government officials are clients of Guido de Marco & Associates;

2. Prior to 2013, a lawyer within the firm was occasionally engaged by the CEO of some of the companies belonging to Mr Schembri to provide specific legal services to such companies, which legal services consisted essentially in the issue of legal letters for recovery of debts, registration of trademarks and review of commercial agreements. No further work was carried out for such companies after 2013 other than the review by the same lawyer of two distributorship agreements, work on which had started in January 2013. The work was concluded by beginning 2014 and (they) are no longer clients of the lawyer.

3. As already confirmed during the interview, I have never done any legal work for Keith Schembri or any of his companies. Moreover, I have never provided any legal work for any government officials. I was, moreover, not in private practice between 2008 to 2013 and returned to private practice approximately in the second half of 2013.”

During the interview, Dr de Marco said that the firm has a legal services contract with Malta Enterprise which has been running ever since the agency was known as the Malta External Trade Corporation (Metco). But he said that he has not stepped into the Malta Enterprise offices for at least 10 years.

Asked whether this was a conflict of interest, Dr de Marco said the work was with a government agency, not the government, and involved legal assistance to enterprises wanting to expand their operations abroad.

He said that de Marco and Associates was not involved in the negotiations between the government and db Group on the price to be paid for the transfer the former ITS site to be developed. The price was discussed between the seller and the buyer, he said.

Even so, once it became clear that the deal would have become a hot political potato, given the PN’s intentions to take the issue before the Auditor General, Dr de Marco said he informed leader Simon Busuttil that the legal firm would be renouncing legal advice on the development.

“My first interest is the (Nationalist) Party,” he said.