It’s my guess that Brian Tonna is going to claim ownership of Egrant Inc

Brian Tonna and Karl Cini of Nexia BT have refused to appear before the European Parliament’s PANA Committee, but have instead agreed to answer questions by email. One of those questions is, or so I gather from the news reports, ‘Who is the owner of Egrant Inc?’

Both accountants are prohibited at law from disclosing information about their clients (and face severe sanctions if they do). But my guess is that, rather than not reply to that question and so fuel further speculation about the company’s links to the Prime Minister, either Tonna or Cini is going to claim in his replies to the PANA Committee that he himself owns Egrant Inc.

I think that is just the sort of thing they would do, with the Prime Minister’s agreement, and that it would be the very reason they agreed to take email questions in the first place. With pressure piling up on the Prime Minister about his suspected ownership of that third Panama company, all three of those crooks would see it as the smart solution: lying to the PANA Committee and getting everyone off Muscat’s back.

But if either Tonna or Cini (more likely Tonna) does claim to own Egrant Inc, it’s not going to play out the way they hope it will, at all. People will read this as a transparent ploy to take the fall for the Prime Minister, which will then allow Tonna to come back for two pounds of flesh rather than just the one he has hacked off already.

People will also find it impossible to believe that Karl Cini felt perfectly comfortable giving Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri’s details to Mossack Fonseca by email, but then felt he had to give his own partner’s details (or his own) by Skype.

If Karl Cini is going to claim he owns the company, that exchange would have made no sense at all. And it wouldn’t have made sense if Tonna is going to claim ownership of Egrant Inc, either. Tonna represented Mossack Fonseca in Malta already at that stage. Besides which, when Mossack Fonseca did set up a company for Brian Tonna – Willerby Inc, in the British Virgin Islands – the details were not given over Skype but by email, which is how we know about it.

Brian Tonna with the new prime minister in March 2013, at the opening of Nexia BT’s new offices: my guess is that Tonna will claim to the PANA Committee that it is he who owns Egrant Inc.