Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1183404
NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 NOVEMBER 2019 MATTHEW AGIUS THE Commissioner of Police will be asked to begin criminal pro- ceedings against betting giant Ti- pico over an alleged forgery since 2018, in challenge proceedings by a former franchise partner. Rachel Tua, a lawyer to Tipico franchise partner Antonios Stam- polidis, said the challenge would be filed in court on Monday. If ratified by the court, it would force the police to investigate company representatives for forgery. Stampolidis, representing the BVI-registered Chadborn Hold- ings, which owns 10 Tipico shops in Austria as a franchise partner, had sued the Malta-based betting company for damages in the re- gion of €14 million for breach of a franchise contract. In that suit, he alleged that Tipico's former direc- tor Oliver Voigt had transferred Stampolidis' signature from a faxed copy of a draft contract onto an amended version which Stam- polidis had already rejected. In the press, Tipico is reported to have denied the allegations as "completely not true" and said that Voigt and Kessler had not been directors for the three years lead- ing up to the filing of the civil suit. According to Tipico, the ending of the contractual partnership be- tween the two parties was "com- pletely different to that reported by the sworn application and it is ab- solutely not true that the defend- ant company breached contractual dispositions in some way." In an email from the police to Stampolidis' lawyer dating back to 2018, the police said they had in- vestigated the case, but appeared reluctant to prosecute. "From in- vestigations carried out on this case it was confirmed that no con- tract was ever delivered to MGA, only a confirmation from Tipico that they entered into an agree- ment with Chadborn Holdings Ltd. Kindly note that MGA does not regulate the terrestrial inter- face in betting shops which are outside of Malta for jurisdictional purposes," reads the email. According to the MGA's rules at the time, all betting companies were bound to deliver a copy of every commercial agreement to the authority. Questions sent to the MGA last Friday afternoon, asking whether they had received a contract re- lating to the franchise agreement with Chadborn Holdings Ltd and whether sanctions had been im- posed if not, were acknowledged but remained unanswered at the time of going to print. The case continues. Franchise partner wants police probe into betting giant LABOUR MEP Miriam Dalli (pic- tured) has been charged with leading the Socialists and Dem- ocrats policies for a European Green New Deal, a new economic model aimed at prioritising com- petitiveness and environmental protection. Dalli had previously proposed that carbon dioxide emissions from cars be reduced by 40% by 2030, a proposal backed by the Eu- ropean Parliament last year. Dalli, now a vice-president of the S&D, will be working on a new industrial policy focusing on climate integrity and social protection. "The European Green New Deal will be our priority for the next years. As Social- ists and Democrats we will continue work- ing hard to make sure that the economic transformation that is required will ensure our in- dustries' competitiveness and protect our workers. Ensuring a proper transition will offer us a business opportunity that our economies should tap into whilst making sure that no one is left behind," Dalli said in a statement on Saturday. Dalli will be coordinating the work on the EU's first European Climate Law which the President-elect for the European Com- mission Ursula von der Leyen committed herself to introduce in the first 100 days of the new European Commission. This climate law will be setting the basis for the long-term ambition of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and mid-term targets for 2030. "It is our priority to protect workers. As part of my work I will be working on a cross-cutting strategy to move towards an economy that works with less emissions. This can help us as a continent to remain competitive whilst at the same time ensure that we reskill our current workforce. This is also about educating young people to be prepared for the economies of the future," Dalli said. The Labour Party's Head of Delegation has also been entrusted with supervising policies pertaining to the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee; emissions from all transport modes; the Agriculture and Rural Development Com- mittee; the Fisheries Committee and the energy sector. Socialists pick Dalli on Green New Deal