Malta Independent

Pilatus CEO on luggage footage – ‘situation could have been handled much better’

- Helena Grech

After the chairman of the bank was caught on film leaving with two large bags on the night when serious allegation­s were made, Pilatus Bank CEO Hamidreza Ghanbari said yesterday that he felt the situation could have been handled better.

The CEO explained that he held discussion­s with chairman Seyed Ali Sadr Hasheminej­ad after the latter was filmed leaving the bank while holding large luggage bags, on the same night serious allegation­s regarding Michelle Muscat as the owner of Panamanian company Egrant were levelled. It was alleged that the bank held some documents which backed up these allegation­s.

Mr Ghanbari also said that the bank has provided the authoritie­s, in order to assist with the magisteria­l inquiry, a nine-hour CCTV footage that he says will clear the bank’s name.

Asked by The Malta Independen­t about the damning footage, he said: “Let me step back and explain what happened that night. Obviously I did talk to the chairman and he believes that the situation could have been handled much better. In order to clarify, we have released a ninehour footage of our CCTV which clearly shows what happened inside the bank, why the chairman was inside the bank with the luggage. So we hope that that clarifies and the authoritie­s have that footage.”

Mr Ghanbari, risk manager Antonella Gauci and the bank’s Chief Operations Officer Luis Felipe Rivera all testified in court yesterday as part of the magisteria­l inquiry into allegation­s that Egrant Inc, a company named in the Panama Papers scandal, truly belongs to the Prime Minister's wife Michelle Muscat.

Magistrate Aaron Bugeja is inquiring into the allegation­s made by journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, that the mysterious Egrant company set up in Panama is or was owned by the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle. The allegation­s say that the declaratio­ns of trust containing this informatio­n were kept at Pilatus Bank, which allegedly also holds an account for Egrant.

The magisteria­l inquiry was launched after Pilatus Bank Chairman Ali Sadr Hasheminej­ad and risk manager Antonella Gauci were both captured on film leaving Pilatus Bank last Thursday evening, carrying two bags, resulting in many doubting the possible inquiry result.

This, coupled with the Police Commission­er Lawrence Cutajar’s going to a fenkata while this was taking place, has raised doubts among the public.

Mr Ghanbari was confident that the magisteria­l inquiry will clear the bank’s name and preserve its reputation:

“We very much look forward to seeing the results which we believe will prove we have done absolutely nothing wrong. The bank’s reputation is intact. At Pilatus we are very client-centric and they are key to our success so we would never do anything to put the bank or the clients at risk. Everything has been given to the authoritie­s and we remain open to any question or inquiry to make sure that the whole issue will be resolved, and to see a resolution at the end of this.”

Mr Ghanbari, asked to deny that Pilatus Bank has been involved, directly or indirectly, with money laundering activities, replied “absolutely”.

“What I can say is that at Pilatus we have a very robust compliance and control system in place. It is reflected in our audited reports. What we implement in terms of ongoing monitoring, seeing online transactio­ns is something unique, something the retail banks cannot apply. Since we are a private bank we have the ability to see every single transactio­n and apply live monitoring to that, which is completely unique in Malta.”

Asked about whether, as CEO, he has been made aware of the bank being under any form of investigat­ion, such as the Malta Financial Services Authority or the Financial Intelligen­ce Analysis Unit, Mr Ghanbari said that the law precludes him from divulging such informatio­n.

“As a regulated credit institutio­n, by law we cannot confirm any inspection by any regulatory bodies. Obviously as a regulated entity we are subject to various inspection­s by the regulators. To make comment about the inspection­s... I encourage you to go to the regulatory bodies and ask them because by law I cannot divulge that informatio­n.

“At Pilatus Bank we adhere to the highest regulatory and corporate governance standards and are fully engaged in complying with the laws and regulation­s both internatio­nally and at the local level. Secondly we are cooperatin­g with the authoritie­s given that the bank has volunteere­d to participat­e in the magisteria­l inquiry and we gave testimonie­s yesterday and today.”

Ms Gauci testified for roughly 1.5 hours, Mr Felipe took another hour while the bank’s CEO testified for roughly two hours.

Pilatus Bank was set up in Ta’ Xbiex in 2013, with Mrs Caruana Galizia claiming that it had attempted to be licensed in other member states until having to settle in Malta.

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