Then he tells us that he was just coming out of a meeting. A person who had just flown in all the way from USA does not walk all that distance just for fun. A person with nothing to hide does not do those things.

Yes, I am also a practitioner within the sector and I entirely agree with Misha’s comments here. One additional factor is that the respective units within the MFSA tasked with determining when and on what basis such compliance visits are undertaken are supposedly tasked with executive autonomy, and the flagging of this situation may have genuinely given rise to the need for a further compliance visit.

We now know however that important information was withheld from the report of a previous compliance visit, so clearly the direction here is coming from a higher level than the respective heads (titled Directors) of the MFSA units, which here would include (given the various regulatory licenses Pilatus holds) the Banking Unit, the Securities and Markets Supervision Unit, and the Conduct Supervisory Unit.

The directors of these units are nevertheless culpable of abetting this alleged cover up and cannot, by dint of their executive offices, claim not to be responsible for what has been allowed to occur these past two or so years. There is similarly the role of the Director General of the MFSA who, again reflective of the authority of her title, must assume responsibility here alongside Joseph Bannister irrespective of what she may claim otherwise.