BREAKING SCANDAL: Energy Minister’s corrupt accountant set up secret BVI company for Chinese official involved in brokering Enemalta/power station deal

Brian Tonna, the corrupt accountant at the epicentre of Malta’s Panama Papers series of scandals involving the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the Energy Minister and the (now former) chairman of the Times of Malta/The Sunday Times publishing group, set up a secret offshore company in the British Virgin Islands for one of the Chinese officials who was a key part of negotiations in the purchase by Shanghai Electric Power of the Delimara power station and a 33% stake in Enemalta.

The company is called Torbridge Services Inc and it was set up in 2013 as a shell company at the same time that Tonna set up a company in the British Virgin Islands for himself (Willerby Trade Inc) and another two for the Energy Minister and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff in Panama, and also restructured for heightened secrecy the BVI companies – Lester, Colson and Selson – which Adrian Hillman (Allied Newspapers/Progress Press), Keith Schembri (the Prime Minister’s chief of staff) and Malcolm Scerri (Schembri’s business partner) had set up for themselves two years earlier.

As with Willerby, Lester, Colson and Selson, the ownership of Torbridge is concealed by Mossack Fonseca’s fiduciary services company ATC Nominees, which holds the shares and has provided two ‘front’ directors, Jaqueline Alexander and Giselle Ocampo. The ultimate beneficial owner is Cheng Chen, holder of Chinese passport number G32458221.

In this case, instead of giving their power of attorney to corrupt accountants Karl Cini and Brian Tonna, as they were requested to do for the companies Willerby, Lester, Colson and Selson, Ocampo and Alexander were asked to give it directly to Cheng Chen himself, which they did on 26 February last year.

The ultimate beneficial ownership of Torbridge was transferred to Chen from Tonna, who had been holding it as a shell until then, in 2014.

On 11 March 2014, Shanghai Electric Power, through its Chinese-government holding company China Power Investment Corporation, signed its deal with Konrad Mizzi, as Energy Minister representing the government of Malta, to buy Malta’s Delimara power plant for €220 million and a 33% stake in national power company Enemalta for €100 million.

Cheng Chen led the due diligence and negotiating team supplied by Accenture, the consulting firm which has been retained by the Chinese government to help Shanghai Electric Power in its initial expansion into the European energy market. A company press release dated July 2015 says that this includes “investments in the power-generating market in Malta” and that “In its strategic consulting role, Accenture will now help Shanghai Electric Power with post-merger integration in Malta”.

Sources inform me that Cheng Chen was particularly close to Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi as he worked on the due diligence operation in Malta, and that he was always present at high-level meetings with the Enemalta chairman and Mizzi.

Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi is here seen shaking Cheng Chen’s hand immediately after the Chinese government’s power company signed its deal to buy the Delimara power station and 33% of Enemalta, in March 2014. The prime minister and deputy prime minister are also in the photograph. Cheng Chen led the Accenture team which worked on the due diligence and negotiations leading up to the deal. Corrupt accountant Brian Tonna set up a secret offshore company for the Energy Minister in Panama and, concurrently, another one for Cheng Chen in the British Virgin Islands.

Konrad Mizzi – with a very telling facial expression – signs the Malta government deal with the Chinese government’s power company in March 2014. This photograph is from Malta Today.