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Matthew Vella
The unrelenting Cecil Pace fights on for the monies held by the BICAL bank controller, thirty years on since the bank he founded was taken under government administration.
At 75, Pace writes from home long, handwritten letters to the Malta Financial Services Authority in a bid to seek justice over what he believes has been a deliberate misappropriation of funds from his BICAL companies. In 1973, the former magnate was accused of misappropriation when his bank, the Bank of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture Ltd, was taken under government administration. The suspension of his banking licence meant he could no longer trade, and a government controller was appointed to pay off all pending debts and creditors from Pace’s group of companies before relinquishing control.
Now Pace is asking Andre Camilleri, the director-general at the MFSA, to launch an investigation in the way the liquidation of the BICAL companies have been taken under administration.
It has been a harrowing life for Pace, who after his fall from glory saw his industrial wealth decimated under the controller’s knife: million-lira investments and hotels were sold off at a pittance, a careless tactic employed by unfriendly controllers to pay off any debts quickly.
After some 14 years under house arrest and jail, Pace was a free man but BICAL remained under the hands of controllers. The liquidation of his bank’s debts is a 31-year-long affair which has benefited nobody, neither Pace nor the depositors whose monies were deposited at BICAL.
“My companies have been dormant since 1974, and yet auditors and the controller are still paying off their liquidation expenses from the asset base,” Pace says. “Up until 2000, they took monies from companies dormant for the past 31 years, up to Lm238,000 in yearly administrative costs. They did not respect the limited liability of the associated companies. They paid off the bank’s liabilities with assets of the other companies. Whilst the companies remained inactive, they were still drained of the assets.”
Pace now fears the constant draining of administrative expenses from his companies’ asset base – an empire that included ships, factories, hotels, and the bank itself – will mean depositors’ monies are being picked at. “I have always declared that it was my interest to see that all debts were liquidated in a bid to give my depositors the monies due to them,” Pace says.
Only two weeks ago, a former client won his case in court to have a deposit lodged at the bank since the early 70s, released. Why the long delay, is a still a question unanswered. The government repeatedly assures people the last leg of liquidation is near.
But the law is set against Pace. The controller and the government enjoy legal immunity for anything they do under their authority to control companies. What’s more, the law is applied retroactively, which means even previous controllers, including Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, former Labour PM and a BICAL controller, are immune from action.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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