FIAU governor was MGA legal counsel at time of Las Vegas trip with Yorgen Fenech

The financial regulator’s legal counsel Edwina Licari was still legal counsel at the Malta Gaming Authority when she flew to Las Vegas with Tumas magnate and casino owner Yorgen Fenech back in May 2018.

Licari is today a board member of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, while serving as legal counsel at the Malta Financial Services Authority.

MFSA chief executive Joseph Cuschieri had only just been appointed to the regular in May 2018 when he travelled with Fenech, Licari and Charlene Bianco Farrugia, a secretary from the Office of the Prime Minister, to Las Vegas.

The Opposition is calling for the removal of Cuschieri from CEO of Malta’s financial services regulator.

The PN called on the Prime Minister to remove Cuschieri after Times of Malta reported that the MFSA CEO had travelled to Las Vegas with Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech in May 2018. The trip was paid for by Fenech.

Cuschieri told the newspaper he had been invited by Fenech to advise on regulatory matters related to gaming, a sector he had just exited. Fenech is a casino owner.

But while Cuschieri had only just stepped down from CEO of the Malta Gaming Authority, also accompanying them on the flight was the MGA’s legal counsel.

Cuschieri has insisted there was no conflict of interest or ethical breach given that he had already moved away from the MGA.

Fenech’s ties to 17 Black and his link to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia were not yet known at the time.

The PN said that Cuschieri’s all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, where he acted as consultant to Fenech, was another blow to Malta’s reputation. “The last thing the financial services sector in Malta needs is to have a shadow cast on the regulator. Cuschieri failed to publicly declare these facts, despite the developments of recent months, and it had to be the Times’s journalists who uncovered these shocking facts that continue to confirm how the institutions were hijacked by those who had an interest in weakening them,” the PN said.

Rule of law NGO Repubblika called on Cuschieri to resign his MFSA role or be removed.  The NGO insisted that the mere fact that Cuschieri accepted to travel to Las Vegas in a trip paid by Fenech and be hosted in luxury casinos while running the MFSA was “a serious breach of professional ethics”.