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.]

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.

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.]

If the Delfosse-Zammit negotiations were still going on, then Dalli had not stopped Zammit, which is why his resignation was requested.

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.

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?

I think that Delfosse Inge was representing ESTOC and not Swedish Match when she asked Zammit to arrange a meeting in March.

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.

Any chance we will hear from the AG before Christmas?