Russian whistleblower tells court she was not paid, bank refutes claims

The case of the controversial whistle-blower against her former employer Pilatus bank continued to be heard yesterday morning, with the bank’s defence team claiming that a text message and public declarations of monies received contradicts her claim of non-payment.

Dr Stefano Filletti, representing Pilatus Bank, poked holes in claims that she could have used an amount of money in an envelope supposedly given to her to pay parking contraventions, which was filmed as being received at the end of March, by saying that he checked the LESA records and there were no outstanding balances or contravention payments processed around that time.

A lawyer testifying on behalf of the Sliema Local Council however did say that as of yesterday morning there was an outstanding balance of some €400 pertaining to the same account; however he did not specify what period of time this refers to.

The whistleblower is a Russian national who claimed to have seen two declarations of trust which expose how the wife of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Michelle Muscat, is truly the ultimate beneficial owner of Egrant Inc, the third company named in the Panama Papers scandal in connection with Nexia BT owner Brian Tonna, Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri. Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri’s secret offshore Panama companies where acquired at the same time as Egrant Inc by Mr Tonna. For a full year speculation has been rampant about who the third company was intended for.

Following the news that the whistleblower had decided to testify in the ongoing Magisterial inquiry into the allegations about Egrant, she provided this newsroom with a full interview, and said that the bank had never paid her for two months and a half months of work – from 19 January to 29 March.

She eventually filed a case against the bank over this dispute, which in turn filed a case of fraud against her for using company money to book personal flights.

Claims about the credibility of the whistleblower have been rampant in the light of the many cases surrounding her time at Pilatus Bank.

Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, presiding over the case, heard the testimony from members of JobsPlus, the Sliema Local Council, bank employees, Finco Trust (the company assigned to handle Pilatus Banks’ payroll), the Department of Industrial and Employment Relations and a former employee of Pilatus now working as an auditor for the Malta Gaming Authority.

The wage dispute started from the whistleblower’s employment contract. She was given a contract which expressly outlined her duties as an executive assistant. The bank signed the contract but details were left missing.

The whistleblower claimed that she was told Finco Trust was unable to put her on the employee pay roll until she received her residency status. Her contract stated she would receive €25,000 per year.

Since residency takes some 10 weeks, the whistleblower said she expressed concern about not being paid for that whole period and then asked Pilatus if they could issue her a cheque instead. The whistleblower testified that the CEO, Hamidreza Ghanbari, had said this was not possible because neither the whistleblower nor her husband have bank accounts in Malta. She said after going to BOV to verify this claim, BOV rejected it and said a cheque could be cashed as long as she presented her passport.

Dr Filletti on the other hand exhibited text messages which he claims were sent by the whistleblower to the CEO asking why she was underpaid, which was presented to suggest that the whistleblower had been lying all along and that she was paid.

Asked to confirm multiple times, the whistleblower said that she never sent that text message and that she “was never paid for the job [she] had done for employment”.

It also emerged in court that throughout the course of the dispute for wages she claimed were never paid, a letter was sent to all directors of the bank through the department of Industrial Employment, with the full sum of wages she was owed.

The court heard how she received a letter back from lawyer Joe Giglio saying that she never worked at the bank and had been fully reimbursed.

In view of the claim that she never worked at the bank, it is unclear as to what she was reimbursed for.

CCTV footage released to the media had shown the whistleblower receiving an envelope of cash towards the end of March. Examined about this, the whistleblower said that she had received some form of money daily in order to buy day-to-day things for the bank, as part of a petty cash, and she was also asked to make payments to clients in cash through sealed envelopes and deliver them to the client at various hotels throughout Malta.

A number of bank employees testified and confirmed that they too were asked to sign their signature on a blank paper as part of the bank’s internal procedures, and said that contrary to the whistleblower’s claims, they were given a reason as to why they were asked to do this. The whistleblower claims she was never provided with an explanation. They also confirmed that they used to see the whistleblower at work daily, which would support the claim that she worked there.

It emerged that when contacted by the whistleblower, a member of Finco Trust (the payroll company) had sent her somebody else’s pay slip that had the same first name. By the time she contacted Finco to have her real payslip sent over, it emerged through testimony of the same Finco employee that he was told not to deal with employees personally and that the Pilatus Bank would settle the matter directly and she would be contacted directly by the CEO for any outstanding payments.

The Finco employee also testified that he had never seen the whistleblower’s name when processing pay slips.

The court heard how neither the Department of Industrial Employment, nor JobsPlus or Identity Malta ever had a record of her employment with Pilatus. A JobsPlus representative confirmed that it is up to the employer to ensure registration.

Lawyer Daniel Buttigieg represented the plaintiff – meaning the whistleblower, Dr Filletti represented Pilatus.

Head of legal, an extremely tearful Claud-Anne Sant Fournier, who was concerned for her children, was the representative of Pilatus as the accused. In very stark contrast was the whistleblower’s demeanor, who appeared to be unperturbed and unusually calm.