Allcare Insurance chairman Eric Schembri, co shareholder Alfred Mifsud, the prime minister and Gozo Channel
Allcare Insurance chairman Eric Schembri with incoming prime minister Joseph Muscat, who inaugurated their offices six months after they opened for business – they waited so as to have him rather than Lawrence Gonzi do the honours
At the official inauguration of Allcare Insurance six months after it opened for business: L to R Edward Zammit Lewis, Chris Cardona, Allcare Insurance chairman Eric Schembri and prime minister Joseph Muscat
A government Department of Information press release
A news report of the event
Eric Schembri
Alfred Mifsud, ex chairman of the Labour party’s broadcasting company and shareholder in Allcare Insurance Brokers, Allcare Insurance Ltd and Crystal Finance.
Gozo Channel Co Ltd chairman Joe Cordina, who was the Labour Party’s financial controller, and from whose Gozo offices Allcare Insurance Brokers and Crystal Finance operated before they opened their own. Allcare Insurance Brokers has once more got the contract for Gozo Channel.
Allcare Insurance Ltd opened for business in December 2012. Its chairman Eric Schembri and his co-shareholder Alfred Mifsud, Labour activist and ex chairman of the Labour Party’s broadcasting company, waited until Labour got into government and then made a big splash with an ‘official opening’ by the new prime minister, Small Business PS Edward Zammit Lewis and Economy Minister Chris Cardona, in June last year.
After Labour was elected, Schembri allegedly told his employees to “be happy” and “pretend to be Labour if you aren’t” because the change in government would mean more business for the company.
Now on to Gozo Channel Co Ltd. Eric Schembri’s son, Simon, is Allcare Insurance Ltd’s managing director. He is also a director at Crystal Finance, the investment advisory company owned by his father, John Dalli and Alfred Mifsud.
Simon Schembri’s wife, Georgina Schembri, is a lawyer with Grech & Grech Advocates. She prepares the tender-related work for Gozo Channel Co Ltd and has done so for a while.
Until Allcare Insurance/Crystal Finance opened their own offices in Gozo, the two companies operated out of Joe Cordina’s offices there. Joe Cordina was the Labour Party’s financial controller until he stepped down to contest the general elections on the party ticket.
Cordina failed to be elected and the incoming government appointed him chairman of Gozo Channel Co Ltd.
This is no doubt purely coincidence, but Allcare Insurance Brokers Ltd was reappointed Gozo Channel’s insurance broker this year after a second tender process. Allcare Insurance Brokers then proceeded to give some of Gozo Channel’s actual insurance business to its sister company, Allcare Insurance Ltd.
Georgina Schembri was already company secretary/lawyer to Gozo Channel Co Ltd in 2011/12 when Allcare Insurance Brokers first took the company’s insurance brokerage business. This mammoth conflict of interest went unremarked upon then as it has done now: Mrs Schembri handled the tender for Gozo Channel Co Ltd, and that tender went to her husband’s company.
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Does it explain yesterday’s measures related to everything insurance.
Not really, the increase in stamp duty is paid by the policy holder and passed on to the government.
Insurance companies do not benefit from increases in stamp duty – the reverse in fact, as they stand to lose if people decide not to renew a policy because they see the increase in stamp duty as not being affordable.
Well how about that? A real life Wizard of Gozo with his own Crystal Ball.
Who comes to mind now? Ah yes, Alfred Sant and his famous “hbieb tal-hbieb”.
U crieki fi crieki. Il-kelma “barunijiet” kont tiddardar tismaghha l-hin kollu dak iz-zmien.
Well done, Daphne! This is clearly a conflicts-of-interest matter.
Isn’t there a code of conduct that lawyers in Malta (and law firms) must adhere to? Isn’t the legal profession a regulated one?
How can it be that lawyers practising law in a member state of the European Union behave so unprofessionally and get away with it?
This is shocking!
They inaugurated their offices after 6 months that the new company was set up. But everyone knows that those offices have been occupied by Allcare Agency for the years.