The shares of the offshore company are owned by the offshore trustees, not by the settlor, thereby keeping everything out of the settlor’s own name.

Having the company shares ‘purchased’ or ‘issued’ by the individual for later transfer into an offshore trust would expose the individual as a company shareholder, and therefore would be worth less in terms of ‘planning’.

The issue at stake here is that it is unlikely to stop with the Panama company.

That offshore company may have no assets, but there is nothing to say that there aren’t other companies say in the British Virgin Islands or in Panama itself, which may hold the ‘real money’ and whose shares are owned by the Panama company.

Those shares themselves may be worth $1 each, say ten shares of $10, and that is all that would show on the accounts of the Panama company.

‘Back-dating’ trust documentation isn’t unusual, especially with less scrupulous individuals who are willing to take the risk (where what is at stake is much larger than a reprimand for poor record-keeping by the Trust regulator in New Zealand).

There is nothing to stop the trustees from ‘back-dating’ the assignment of the shares of an offshore company which is already in existence, Tabatha White, but has not yet had its shares assigned into the trust and therefore isn’t in trust, but could be assigned next year (after the storm has died down and all ‘independent audits’ have proven the trust “has no meaningful assets”), when the scrutiny and pressure have shifted elsewhere.

This is complex, but here is an example –

Let’s say that Konrad Mizzi’s trust holds the shares of the Panama company.

Let’s say that Konrad Mizzi personally owns the shares of (another) BVI company.

Let’s say that the BVI company only owns the shares of (yet another) Panama company. Let’s say that the (yet another) Panama company has a bank account in it with $10 million.

Konrad Mizzi can if he wanted, in 2018, “sell” the shares of the BVI company (which in turn owns the shares of the second Panama company) for say $10 (if there are ten shares worth $1 each) to the shareholders of the (first) Panama company held in the New Zealand trust. The trust’s ownership status will remain unchanged, but the company will have acquired the $10 million (and in turn, the trust will have done as well), through a layered, five tier structure: Settlor, Offshore Trust, Panama company, BVI company and yet another Panama company.

Why not have the trust in Panama?

Because there is no way that a transfer of funds from Panama can be made to any meaningful jurisdiction useful to a Malta resident settlor, by ‘wrapping up’ the dubious offshore company into a respectable offshore trust, New Zealand was necessary as it has never appeared on any blacklist of non-cooperative territories in the fight against money laundering and financial crime – unlike Panama.

The main issue at stake here, isn’t the cost, or why he did, or why go to the trouble. The simple matter that the cabinet minister of an EU country has been caught out with an offshore company and an offshore trust are matters for immediate resignation and prosecution, for intent to launder funds, if it hasn’t happened yet. This is a financial crime not a misdeed or an error of judgement.

His financial ‘advisers’ must be investigated immediately for not reporting their clients to the Malta police financial crime unit, as they are expected to have had ‘reasonable knowledge’ that their client/s had committed or where about to commit a crime in evading tax and laundering monies.

If the MFSC does not move on this one, Malta’s standing will come under the scrutiny of the Financial Action Task Force for Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories (FATF) and we risk being stripped of our EU-approved offshore financial services centre status, which we share with Luxembourg and the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Dublin.

Up to now I was thinking it was just their basic tu quoque response. But in fact I think it’s actually a Freudian slip. Although the polls showed them that victory was inevitable way before, they view the oil scandal as their watershed moment.

For a long time after the election they kept trying to pin it on Austin Gatt, to no avail. They wanted ministerial responsibility, but there was none.

Now they are seeing this as another watershed moment, but in reverse. I think it is too early and they are wrong to think so. But it tells me two things. There is ANOTHER oil scandal, and this time, there IS ministerial responsibility.

I could be jumping to conclusions, but frankly their evasive and shady interviews leave me no choice.