Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1496383
2 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 APRIL 2023 2 Government, Adrian Delia file replies to requests and claims made by Steward Health Care CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 In its responses, the Govern- ment opposed Steward's request to exhibit new evidence and documents, adding that should the court uphold this request, the Government was reserving the right to respond to them by itself exhibiting documents that it "were not available, and neither in existence" before the judgement was handed down. This, it explained, was be- cause of developments which had occurred after the case was concluded. It also opposed the Steward company's request for a refer- ence to the European Courts. Steward entered the tempo- rary emphyteutical concession "with their eyes open and their pockets widened" - Adri- an Delia Nationalist MP Adrian Delia also filed his replies to Steward Healthcare's appeal and other court filings made by its relat- ed companies. Delia had been the one to file the original court case to rescind the contract. The issues dealt with in the re- plies, which number five in all, overlap at times, but essentially argue that: 1. Steward Health Care In- ternational, S.L.U. needed to first prove that it has a valid juridical interest, as it was not a party to the original lawsuit. "That the shareholders of Steward Malta Assets Limited (C-70625) and Steward Mal- ta Management Limited (C- 70624) is the respondent com- pany Steward Malta Limited (C-70546), while the sharehold- ers of the respondent company, Steward Malta Limited, is Stew- ard Health Care International Limited (C-83293), and there- fore the interested third party , that is, Steward Health Care In- ternational S.L.U, does not even have a legal relationship with the same companies because they are not the shareholders of the present respondents, and therefore this is a clearer proof that they should not have the right of appeal because they have no juridical interest in the case". That is why it is being said that the third party company's claim that it had an interest in the legal business which is the subject of the present case, is completely incorrect and mis- leading as this business is a contract made by other people that cannot affect the rights of a non-party. That therefore it is fatuous that the third party company claims that we have violated its fundamental right to property, when it is not the owner itself, nor the shareholder of the con- tracting companies that were found to have defrauded the people of Malta and Gozo. That here they are expecting to keep public property [as security] for their debts when the parties were found to have entered in- to the temporary emphyteutical concession in a fraudulent man- ner and consequently fraus om- nia corrumpit. "Therefore, and for the afore- mentioned reasons, the appel- lant is of the humble opinion that the company Steward Health Care International S.L.U, a company incorporated and registered in the Kingdom of Spain, which is not a share- holder of the respondent com- panies, has no juridical interest to file this appeal and therefore its claims must be rejected, with costs against the same interest- ed third party." 2. That they failed to give a valid reason for only exhibit- ing several documents, which had been in the possession from the start, at the appeal stage. Likewise, Delia argued, Stew- ard Health Care International S.L.U had failed to give valid reasons to justify its request to only exhibit the documents list- ed in its application at the ap- peal stage, when it also emerg- es from those same documents that they had been available and producible in court by Steward Malta Limited during the origi- nal proceedings before the First Court. 3. That their request for a pre- liminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union was spurious Delia argued that Steward Malta Assets Limited, Stew- ard Malta Management Limit- ed and Steward Malta Limited had also failed to justify their requests for a preliminary refer- ence to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Steward's request and the questions proposed by them in their application of 15 March 2023 "absolutely do not raise any genuine point of interpreta- tion of European law," and were not necessary in order to decide the present case, which is purely based on provisions of domestic law. Steward's request for the pre- liminary reference was also in- admissible, because it should ask for the interpretation of a European law in a general way in the community interest and not something that asks the European Court to pronounce itself on the compatibility of a domestic law with a Europe- an one or to serve as a further appeal from the decision by the domestic Courts. The request for the prelimi- nary reference is also inadmis- sible, because it only relates to a domestic issue that is not of community interest. 4. That Steward's appeal effectively admits that it had failed to ensure that the orig- inal concession had not been won fraudulently when it took on Vitals Global Healthcare's business. That it is also evident from the appeal filed by the Steward companies, that they make re- peated reference to the fact that the temporary emphyteutical concession was fraudulent, that they had failed to carry out the appropriate due diligence that it was obliged to do according to the law before it acquired the shares of Vitals Global Health- care company. This is because it claims to have been pressured by the Maltese Government into reaching an agreement as soon as possible in order to ac- quire the company. That therefore it can never be said that Steward Malta Limit- ed and the related companies had nothing to do with the shortcomings of Vitals Glob- al Healthcare and the related companies, when it itself failed to ensure that it would once it acquired the shares of the com- pany Vitals Global Healthcare, it was also going to take on everything that had been done incorrectly or through collu- sion and fraud by Vitals Global Healthcare. This was a clear ad- mission by the company to the fraudulent nature of the conces- sion, said the lawyers. "Therefore all this shows that the Steward companies entered the temporary emphyteutical concession, with their eyes open and their pockets widened. Their failure to carry out the proper due diligence, cannot now exempt them from their obligations and responsibility, because of the harm inflicted by them and by government func- tionaries on the people of Mal- ta and Gozo, as a result of their shortcomings." "In spite of the fact that they had bound themselves to car- ry out structural works in the hospitals, seven years after the concession was granted, they had not completed works at St. Luke's Hospital to attract med- ical tourism, they had not built the new Gozo General Hospi- tal, nor had they restructured the Karin Grech hospital, ma- jor obligations that should have been fulfilled and have not been fulfilled, but that they have al- ready been paid for and there- fore have misappropriated the money to the detriment of the Maltese State." Lawyers Edward DeBono, Nicholas DeBono and Thomas Bugeja filed Delia's replies. Court ruling cancelling hospitals concession contract Government has opposed Steward's request for a reference to the European Courts