Wall Street Journal quotes Kessler as saying that Dalli might have lied to the investigators
WALL STREET JOURNAL
EUROPE NEWS – October 23, 2012, 5:46 p.m. ET.
EUROPEAN TOBACCO-RELATED PAYMENT PROBE WIDENS
BY LAURENCE NORMAN
BRUSSELS — Former European Health Commissioner John Dalli met with his political associate Silvio Zammit immediately before Mr. Zammit first requested a €60 million ($78.3 million) payment from a tobacco-company lobbyist, said people familiar with the biggest corruption probe to hit the European Union’s top ranks in years.
The alleged request for money during a Feb. 10 meeting in Malta—in return for a change in tobacco legislation—sparked a probe by the European Union’s antifraud office and Mr. Dalli’s resignation last week.
The antifraud office, Office de Lutte Anti-Fraude, or OLAF, has completed its probe into allegations that Mr. Zammit requested a large payment for Mr. Dalli from Swedish Match AB SWMA.SK -1.71% in order to change legislation banning the sale and export of snus, a smokeless-tobacco product, across most of the 27-nation bloc. The sale of snus is allowed in Sweden.
(…)
A person familiar with the details said Mr. Dalli first denied to OLAF investigators that he had met with Mr. Zammit on Feb. 10, but later acknowledged that the meeting, which allegedly took place in his private office, took place. The former commissioner couldn’t be reached.
Shortly after that meeting, Mr. Zammit met with the local lobbyist Swedish Match was employing. Drawing on notes he claimed to have made during his meeting with Mr. Dalli, Mr. Zammit said the commissioner was favorable to changing the ban on snus sales but that it could cost him his political career. He said Mr. Dalli needed to be compensated for that, according to the person.
(…)
A second person with direct knowledge of the situation told the The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Zammit met in Mr. Zammit’s restaurant in his hometown of Sliema on Feb. 13 with the local lobbyist and a Swedish Match employee who had flown to Malta. The person alleges Mr. Zammit laid out more details of the requested €60 million payment that day, asking that it be paid in two parts.
The first part—€10 million—would come after a meeting between Mr. Dalli and a Swedish Match official that could take place “anywhere in the world,” Mr. Zammit allegedly said, according to the second person with direct knowledge. Mr. Dalli would have to pledge to change the tobacco rules, this person said. The other €50 million would be paid after the legislation was actually changed, the second person said..
On Feb. 21, Swedish Match told the Maltese lobbyist it was rejecting the request for a payment, said Patrik Hildingsson, Swedish Match’s vice president of public affairs.
The company informed the Swedish government three days later, Mr. Hildingsson said, and reported the information to the European Commission in May, according to the antifraud office.
(…)
A European Commission spokesman said Monday that Mr. Dalli had held “unofficial contacts with several tobacco companies.”
“In light of the conclusions, it was politically untenable to remain in his post,” said the spokesman, Olivier Bailly.
The rules on what meetings officials should hold place the onus on the commissioner to act responsibly and transparently. However, Frederic Vincent, an EU spokesman for the health portfolio, said the European Commission abides by World Health Organization-linked international standards that aim to ensure contacts with tobacco-industry officials are limited and properly documented.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Giovanni Kessler, OLAF’s general director, reiterated that there was no “conclusive evidence” that Mr. Dalli was “behind the request of money.” But he said he believed Mr. Dalli hadn’t been upfront with the investigators.
“You put everything together, you see the possible lies…and then you draw conclusions,” he said. “And then we say on this basis that our conclusion is he was aware of this person…asking money in his name.” (…)
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203400604578074762715100962.html
From today’s MaltaToday web edition: “Backbencher Franco Debono asks parliament to urgently discuss the resignation of John Dalli, but later agrees to Prime Minister’s suggestion to wait after Attorney General concludes his own investigation.”
Is there or isn’t there an investigation being conducted by the AG?
You have been stating ad nauseam that there is no such thing that needs to be done, and yet the PM has been quoted as stating otherwise.
The mind boggles.
[Daphne – I suspect there’s been a problem with semantics, unless either one of them thinks that reading a report constitutes an investigation.]
My understanding is that the AG can, and probably is duty bound to carry out an investigation.
The scope of the OLAF investigation seems to me would be limited to the suitability or otherwise of Dalli retaining his post without going too much into the legality or otherwise of his actions.
It would however be the AG’s duty to investigate whether there are grounds for criminal prosecution.
[Daphne – You’ve got it completely the wrong way round. The AG doesn’t investigate and the AG’s office doesn’t have the wherewithal for investigations. It is the police who investigate and the AG who takes the decision – but only when cases are referred to him by the police – on whether to prosecute. Now it’s a matter of whether the police here are going to reinvent the wheel and redo everything that has been done already. But you’re also overlooking one very important point: that the Maltese authorities in various fields cooperated with OLAF in their investigations already, so basically, the work has been done.]
Is it possible that the Attorrney General briefed the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Oppostion on the OLAF’s report?
I watched Evarist Bartolo this morning on TVAM talking about the Malta Financial Services Authority and it made me cringe.
Hear him out in this clip: i this what the PL has planned for our financial regulator?
“Irridu naraw” he says, which sound ominous.
The PL never change. Varist uses words like “mazunerija”, “ma jaqbzux ghaz-zghir” and even sows the seeds of envy by mentioning, out of point, the fees paid to consultants.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/1022881-evarist-bartolo-on-mfsa
If you watch the entire part on the TVM website you can see that he was warned several times to be careful on what he says as it could harm the financial services industry but he pushed on regardless.
Not surprised, Gavin Gulia gave us something similar last year, and Maltastar has been at it for a good six months now.
‘Trimming the banks’ profits to reasonable levels’ and revising the autonomy and redefining the ‘social reason of the MFSA’ were a couple of statements which left me puzzled.
Every other week there’s an opinion piece or editorial which is concerned with the workings of the MFSA and the futility of the sector if not milked to the required potential, whatever that will be.
What’s sure is that at the moment, Evarist Bartolo seems free to put across feeble Marxist ideology as the sole criteria for any Labour proposal in the field. Why he’s doing it is anyone’s guess.
Another nail in Dalli’s coffin.
Dalli is no saint but this Kessler guy is too cocky
So when will Dalli and Zammit confront each other on Bondi+ for the sake of clearing their names?
And Franco Debono won’t be left out of the action, asking the prime minister to refer the matter to the house asap.
The opposition agreed, how is it then, that both forgot to ask the newly independent candidate for his view whether the matter should be discussed at all?
What’s JPO’s position regarding this scandal? He expresses disdain at government’s plans to submit a signed contract to the PAC, yet feels no need to emphasize transparency and accountability in Dalli’s minor mishap with the ‘hidden hands’.
€60m must have been the final negotiated figure. I wonder what the amount first demanded was?
just saw this artcle on Malta Today seems like even they are finally abandoning Dalli
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/world/Swedish-Match-vice-president-Zammit-made-offer-to-our-Maltese-consultant-20121024
Meanwhile, today’s The Times is running a story about how much money Dalli would have lost in allowances and pensions if he’d been sacked, rather than resigned.
Sadly it’s these details that interest the proletariat, more than the real pithy stuff.
He certainly has an international profile.
He made it to the Wall Street Journal at least twice in less than a week.
This is a mega disaster.
Franco Debono’s fuck-ups pale into insignificance in comparison.
Dalli is making a fool of himself on a global level.
The resulting damage to Malta is incalculable.
And now…..
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20121024/local/barroso-warns-dalli.442446
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20121024/local/barroso-tells-dalli-to-behave-with-dignity.442446
When enough is enough.
In other words, when questioned, Dalli contradicted the evidence Kessler had to hand.
Which makes it an unambiguous piece of circumstantial evidence.
Any chance we will hear from the AG before Christmas?
Swedish Match claim that: “On Feb. 21, Swedish Match told the Maltese lobbyist it was rejecting the request for a payment,
.
Elsewhere the same vice president Hildingsson is quoted as saying that Delfosse-Zammit haggling was still going on up to the 16 March and that ESTC was not proud of being part of Dalli’s resignation.
What are we to conclude if we exclude entrapment?
I think that Delfosse Inge was representing ESTOC and not Swedish Match when she asked Zammit to arrange a meeting in March.
“A second person with direct knowledge of the situation told the The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Zammit met in Mr. Zammit’s restaurant in his hometown of Sliema on Feb. 13 with the local lobbyist and a Swedish Match employee who had flown to Malta. ”
So according to this, there is a lobbyist, another Maltese, but working in Malta, involved as well.
Could it be that this is the Maltese entrepreneur Kessler referred to? I always found it strange to define Silvio Zammit as THE local contact person chosen by the international Tobacco Industry.
If there was another unidentified lobbyist acting on behalf of Swedish Match that would be legitimate and unobjectionable in the eyes of those who wear blinkers.. See no evil, hear no evil and say no evil against the Swedish tobacco lobby. They consider themselves to be uncorruptible and uncorrupting. Only the Mediterranean race suffer from that heinous sin.
Where does that leave Barroso and Kessler?
Dalli’s wrongdoing, and the basis for his resignation, is clear: he allowed Silvio Zammit to use his name by doing nothing to stop him.
The rest is detail.
I am sick and tired of reading about this world srandard and that organisations ethics. Malta has standards too, and in fact leads the world in many respects. I don’t know exactly what they are but a bloke in a bar told me so it must be true. I would swear to it.
I know the bloke and he’s right. You should see him holding forth on Maltese excellence in management efficiency while holding on to two pints of Blue Label.
He also does a good rendition of “Qalb ta’ Kampanjol” when in the mood.
I can understand Dalli wanting to trade his political career for a healthy bank account.
What baffles me is how was he supposed to go about it. To my mind, it was either the sack and no money, as happened, or no sack, through some clever manoeuvre, and the money. In other words, a lose lose, or a win win situation.
Patrik Hildengsson, Chairman of the European Smokeless Tobacco Council is on record as regretting (“not being proud of”) being part of Dalli.s resignation”.
He is also on record as stating that during a meeting held on 7 March 2012 Dalli had pointed out that altering the Directive would mean “political suicide” and he had left the meeting before any bribery haggling took place.
The Delfosse-Zammit negotiations were still going on on 16 March 2012 strongly suggesting entrapment.
If the Delfosse-Zammit negotiations were still going on, then Dalli had not stopped Zammit, which is why his resignation was requested.
There is a vast universe of difference with “might have lied” versus actually lied.
And we accept this crap along with the so-called Dalli’s verbal resignation because it comes from the high and mighty EU composed of mainly of self professed racially and morally superior northerners.
If this was an internal Malta affair and the Maltese officials and investigators came up with these inane statements then one would already hear the loud cat calls and yells from the bleachers of a “Mickey Mouse country” and the infamous “Only in Malta!” and they would be correct in their assessment but in this case the EUSSR politburo is beyond reproach and criticism as it fudges along.
We accept this bull dung without a whimper because it is the EU, the reincarnation of the Pope’s Holy Roman Empire and is so superior to us mini islander mortals.
I say the emperor has no clothes.
Does this mean that there will be no Swedish lobbyists flying in to Peppi’s Kiosk? No meetings al fresco?
Kessler stated facts only. So let me be clear about facts and in my opinion this issue has been inflated for some specific reason that only time will tell.
Fact number one: no money was paid; no offer accepted; that means no agreement=no contract. This can be for example that I go to the supermarket I see a sack of potatp that costs 2 euros and is labeled 2000 euros; I did not buy it and left the supermarket emptyhanded. Do I go to the police?
Fact number two: It appears that Dalli was never negotiating any bribe with the swedish tobacco company?????
Fact number three: the directive progressed without any hint of the bribe that is the bribe did not stop the ban.
My circumstantial evidence interpretation/s:
The tobacco company has all the interest to stop the ban; employed Zammit to be part and parcel in their ploy and we have the result of Barroso and Kessler buying the company’s stoppage and sacking Dalli; or buying directly Barroso and Kessler to gain more time for their business; or Maltese lawyer in the OLAF team having a grudge against fellow Maltese Dalli.
I will think of more soon.
[Daphne – Can’t wait.]