Former Untours CEO denies handing voter database to C-Planet, alleges perjury

A politically-connected businessman, recently outed in court as having handed over a database of records on Maltese voters to an IT company, has denied the claim in two judicial protests, calling for criminal action to be taken against the witness who named him. 

Mulberry Insurance Brokers Ltd and former Untours CEO Ivan Vladimir Buttigieg filed judicial protests against Philip Farrugia and C-Planet (IT) Solutions on Wednesday, denying having handed Farrugia a database containing personal information about everyone listed on Malta’s electoral register.

Buttigieg is currently the managing director and co-owner of Mulberry.

Besides denying the claims in the strongest of terms, the judicial protest filed by Buttigieg insists that Farrugia must now face criminal charges for making calumnious accusations, committing perjury in civil proceedings, taking a false oath and fabricating evidence. It also called for Farrugia’s interdiction.

C-Planet’s owner, Farrugia had testified last week before Mr Justice Francesco Depasquale in the collective court action filed against C-Planet Solutions Ltd, by hundreds of claimants assisted by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and Repubblika.

The claim for damages had been filed after it was reported, in March 2020, that a database containing 337,384 records of Maltese voters’ personal information had been freely accessible online for at least a year. This data, which included names, addresses, ID card details, dates of birth, fixed and mobile phone numbers as well as a reference to political orientation or voting preferences, was allegedly left exposed on the internet by C-Planet.

During his testimony last Wednesday, Farrugia had told the court that Untours Ltd, a GWU subsidiary, had hired him to design management software and that Ivan Buttigieg had given C-Planet the database for this purpose. 

Farrugia, himself a former manager at One Productions and brother in law to Labour Party MP and former Labour Party president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, also acknowledged the IDPC’s finding that the database had been used for other C-Planet clients but said that this had happened “only once”.

Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi signed Buttigieg’s judicial protest, whilst lawyer David Bonello signed that filed by Mulberry Insurance Brokers Ltd.