Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1504229
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 JULY 2023 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA A Court of Appeal has turned down a request by the heirs of a stately home in Marsaskala, to overturn the first court's refusal to annul a donation contract of Villa Manduca and its estate to the Maltese Archdiocese. The case concerns the donation of Villa Manduca and its gardens, together with other properties adjoining it, to the Church of the Holy Rosary in Marsaskala. The 1997 contract was drawn up by the siblings Maria Carmela Debattista and Agatha Formosa Gauci, who owned a 'giuspatro- nat' on the said chapel. The building, located in the main square of Marsaskala, was the summer residence of wealthy Maltese merchants and barons of the Manduca Family in 1850. According to their wishes, they wanted the archdiocese to have the property in return for the cel- ebration of memorial masses and an annual veneration for the Holy Virgin of the Rosary, whose cult they had a profound devotion for. Apart from being donated the properties, the ecclesiastical authorities also took patronage of the chapel's painting of the Holy Virgin of the Rosary, as well as other items of gold and pre- cious stones, silverware and holy vestments used for venerations. The chapel is known locally as Tal-Barunissa. In 2013, the owners' heirs took the Maltese archdiocese to court in a bid to regain their property, accusing the church authorities of having left the house in ruins and failing to keep up with their obligations outlined in the 1997 donation contract. The extensive villa and its es- tate, which includes a chapel with works of art and other sil- verware, were donated to former Archbishop Joseph Mercieca to be used as a retirement home for clerics or for pastoral purposes. Instead, the Church requested planning permission to demol- ish nine of the estate's buildings on St Anne Street, Marsaskala, to erect a seven-storey complex. Formosa Gauci passed away in 2007, and with the appointment of a new archbishop, the heirs of Villa Manduca proceeded with court action to regain their property. In January 2009, the archdiocese accepted to return Villa Manduca and the chapel to the heirs, and instead retain the adjacent estate of nine proper- ties. Their heirs were denied their request to annul the contract and the dispossession of the Archdio- cese of Malta. While the heirs argued that the properties were expected to be used only as a residence for priests or seminarians of the Archdiocese, the Court of Magis- trates stated that this restriction did not explicitly appear in the donation contract and that the Marsaskala parish was granted the right to use the property for other purposes, "as long as they are of a spiritual, pastoral, or edu- cational nature." The court said the voluminous evidence presented to it showed that while not used as a house for clergy, the property had been used for worship services, meet- ings of different religious groups, activities of the Legion of Mary, religious, formative, and so- cio-cultural activities for children and youth, English-language masses for foreigners, summer schools, prayer groups, and even a summer camp for refugee chil- dren. The Court added that it found nothing objectionable in turning the property into a pastoral cen- tre with a restaurant and shop attached to it. And it said that the breach of various pious obligations for the donors, was not a condition that could lead to a revocation of the donation. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Appeals court refuses heirs' bid to annul Church donation Russian sanction link to Exante sister company in Cyprus Villa Manduca heirs wanted rescission of Church donation contract that included chapel and Marsaskala estate The Marsaskala parish administers the grounds of Villa Manduca that include the chapel of the Holy Rosary (inset) MATTHEW AGIUS DAYS before a Maltese court's decision to overturn XNT's fine, sanctions were imposed on its Cypriot sister company over con- nections to a Russian-owned in- ternational investment group. On 13 July, XNT, formerly known as Exante, won the con- stitutional case to overturn a €244,000 fine imposed on it by the Malta Financial Services Au- thority. The financial and investment services provider had been fined by the regulator over several fail- ures to comply with anti-money laundering rules. But just a few days before, on 5 July, Ukraine's President Volody- myr Zelensky brought into effect a package of National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) sanctions, focusing on entities linked to the Russian Alfa Group, including Exante Group Compa- ny, registered in Cyprus as EXT Ltd. The sanctions were imposed on entities which either created threats or posed potential threats to Ukraine's national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity, promote ter- rorist activities or violate human rights and freedoms and the cit- izen. Exante provided brokerage ser- vices for investments in foreign assets and held a significant po- sition in this market, ranking as the second largest market player in Ukraine. It had been one of the few international intermediaries that worked with Ukrainians af- ter 2014, allowing them to invest in foreign assets, according to America-based business publica- tion Forbes. In 2015, a complaint had been filed by the United States Secu- rities and Exchange Commis- sion (SEC), naming Portoma- so-registered Exante as one of 37 companies that had used insider information obtained by cyber- criminals to buy and sell secu- rities in anticipation of market responses to the stolen informa- tion, netting the group over $100 million in profits. "Exante Ltd purports to be a Malta-based hedge fund and holds proprietary trading ac- counts at Interactive Brokers and at Lek Securities, which were used in connection with the fraudulent scheme to make trades resulting in approximately $24.5 million in ill-gotten gains," reads the SEC complaint, going on to say that "several of Exante's directors are also owners of defendant Global Hedge Capital Fund Ltd, and the two entities share employees. Ex- ante and Global Hedge frequent- ly made illicit trades in the same securities, on the same days and around the same time, and often through the same IP addresses." In March last year, financial intelligence website FinTel- egram reported the fine im- posed by the FIAU on the MF- SA-regulated XNT, owned by the Malta-registered Lartemisis Holding Ltd, a holding compa- ny controlled by the three Brit- ish Virgin Island firms, Nations Development Group Ltd, Stoic Ltd, and Zormax Ltd and part of the Russian-Maltese Exante Group, which also includes EXT Ltd. Exante and EXT Ltd were also blacklisted by the Russian Cen- tral Bank in 2021. magius@mediatoday.com.mt Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brought into effect sanctions focussing on entities linked to the Russian Alfa Group, including the Exante Group company registered in Cyprus as EXT Ltd