The Maltese Job: Henley & Partners has made the front page of The Independent (London). The headline is – Passports for profit: British company to make ‘disgusting amounts of money’ from controversial EU passport sale
Published:
January 30, 2014 at 12:12pm
This is the same article in The Independent’s online edition. The photograph shows Henley & Partners man Eric Major.
The Independent’s report begins:
A British company has been accused of making “disgusting amounts of money” from a controversial scheme by Malta to sell European Union passports to tycoons and celebrities ranging from a former Formula One world champion to a Chinese billionaire.
Henley & Partners, a private company registered in Jersey which specialises in “citizenship solutions”, stands to make at least €60m (£49m) from its role as the designer and principal contractor for the scheme, which will sell passports for €1.15m a piece.
Please read the full report via the link below.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/passports-for-profit-british-company-to-make-disgusting-amounts-of-money-from-controversial-eu-passport-sale-9094251.html?utm_source=indynewsletter&utm_medium=email30012014
Am I the only one who thinks that the legislation as it stands allows Henley and Partners to sell as many passports as they wish under the original rules of secrecy and no bind to purchase or rent property and buy government bonds?
When the law is amended and that could take a long time, a legal definition of 12 months residency may simply mean having rented a flat for a year.
Residency is a fluid legal term which can be interpreted differently depending in the context. Residency has one meaning for Social Security entitlement, another for Inland Revenue purposes and another still for naturalisation.
Meanwhile, whilst parliamentarians debate Henley and Partners can continue to apply the original rules as laid down in law.
You are certainly not the only one with doubts about the faults within the citizenship scheme as the law NOW stands.
Things will continue to be so as long as:-
(a) no amendments incorporating the thrice-proposed changes are enacted through parliament; and
(b) government, as empowered by it, will avail itself of the hiatus and, in the meantime, rush into selling its ‘product’ to as many applicants as possible. Henley and something will certainly have no qualms about this.
Frankly, I have very little hopes that the Court procedures instituted by the Opposition will have a quick and decisive result to Malta’s real benefit i.e. by exposing the scheme as simply a way of prostituting Malta’s standing in the E.U.
Why isn’t anyone from the PN lambasting the scheme in terms of the Fund which will receive millions?
Why isn’t the income going into the government’s coffers? If it’s become so easy to give away so much dosh to the Taghna Lkoll inner circle, how much easier will it be to hand out through a fund?
In fact there is also going to be a FUND with Trustees, independent of the governmebt, who will be deciding on applications for projects presented to them.
If the EU wants nationalism and separatism from thriving, it needs to put a stop to these dodgy schemes. There should be no schemes for the rich except fast-track visas.
Precisely.
http://euobserver.com/justice/122925
The commission noted the deal was “done in good faith.” Justice commissioner Viviane Reding also tweeted that Malta did it in the spirit of “constructive co-operation.”
But the level of good faith is open to question.
The provocation by Joseph Muscat was never the full open hand. Now that it has been legally tailored, he will deliver the strike.
Watch that cap rise.
Didn’t the PN media say that they will be making €200 million “Ma jmissu ma xejn 2 ????
Any comments about the expulsion of Kevin Plumpton from PN media events ?????
[Daphne – Where did you hear that, Mr Privitera? And even if somebody did feed you that rubbish, you should have been able to work out for yourself that it can’t possibly be true. You can’t expel a person from ‘media events’, and as far as I can gather, the PN is not predisposed to expelling people from anything because it has overtones of fascism and the Labour Party.]