Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1541179
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 NOVEMBER 2025 NEWS CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 The "authoritative ruling", Abela had said "exposed the Opposition for repeating false narratives in the hope they would be believed". He insisted that it was not true that Stew- ard were paid for services not rendered. At this juncture, no one had access to the ruling and the government was pro- viding very little detail as to what its counter claim at the ICC had been. It now transpires that the government had really been requesting Steward pay €488 million for failure to deliver services and failure to fulfil contractual milestones as de- termined by the hospitals con- cession agreement. Basing its defence entirely on the Delia Judgments—the ini- tial ruling of the Maltese court to rescind the contract was called Delia I and its confirma- tion on appeal called Delia II, collectively referred to as the Delia Judgments—the govern- ment sought reimbursement of €488 million from Steward. But in the end, it lost its claim. The only victory was that the tribunal rejected Steward's claim for €158 million that was based on the side agreement it had secretly signed with then minister Konrad Mizzi in Au- gust 2019. That agreement meant that if the Maltese courts rescind or annul the contract, it would be construed as a gov- ernment default, obliging the government to pay Steward a cool €100 million. The Delia Judgments had re- scinded the contract and all side agreements, rendering the surreptitious arrangement null. Steward's invoices never challenged According to Article 929 of the judgment, the tribunal dealt with the question as to whether the value of services claimed by Steward should be reduced by 40% or 80% because of "partially deficient" perfor- mance as argued by the Mal- tese Government. Effectively, what the govern- ment was arguing at the ICC was exactly what the Oppo- sition and other stakeholders in Malta had been arguing all along—Steward failed to fulfil its contractual obligations and had to pay back €400 million. But the tribunal rejected this argument, giving weight in- stead to Steward's claim that throughout the concession agreement the government had never challenged any of its in- voices. Articles 934 and 935 of the ruling lay down the tribunal's reasoning: "The Tribunal is not convinced that the healthcare services provided by the Claim- ants [Steward] were substan- tially lacking from a quantita- tive or quality perspective. The Claimants rightly point out that during the lifetime of the Transaction Agreements, the GoM [Maltese government] never claimed any deduction on the HSDA [Healthcare Ser- vices Agreement] invoices… For the Tribunal, there exists no compelling evidence that deductions from the payments for Claimants' healthcare ser- vices are warranted." The tribunal's decision raises question marks about the lack of government oversight while the concession agreement was in place and whether this was intended. One interpretation is that no one in government responsible for this concession agreement had an interest in defending the public interest. This is not a spurious inter- pretation. Indeed, it has to be noted that in its defence at the tribunal, the government wholeheartedly embraced the Delia II judgment that spoke of collusion between Steward and Maltese public officials. The Maltese Court of Appeal had ruled: "In the opinion of this court, the events of the story do not show deception by one party and ingenuity from the other, as the First Hall be- lieved, but collusion between the appellant companies and high-level representatives of the Government or its agencies which led to the signing of sim- ulated contracts not intended to provide a quality medical service but for ulterior mo- tives." No evidence to substantiate claims In its bid to claim back al- most half-a-million euros from Steward, the government ar- gued that Steward "failed to achieve the concession mile- stones", insisting this had "a di- rect and material impact on the value of the healthcare services delivered". Article 887 of the ruling lists the Maltese Gov- ernment's defence: "Ignoring the Milestones when assess- ing performance would distort the contractual framework the Parties had agreed… Steward's effort to treat the pre-Com- pletion period as exempt from these binding obligations is wholly unfounded." The government also noted Steward's failure (Article 888) to deliver the capital invest- ment for the redevelopment of the hospitals and to develop medical tourism, obligations listed in the contract. Moreover, the government accused Steward (Article 889) of failing to "develop services" during the transition period, which constituted a contrac- tual breach since the company was obliged to offer "contin- uous service provision at or above pre-concession levels". Nonetheless, when push came to shove the government failed to provide the evidence to sub- stantiate its claims. "The Respondent [Govern- ment of Malta] has not pro- vided the Tribunal with any relevant evidence that would indicate the existence of ordi- nary, let alone critical, service failures by the Claimants [Stew- ard]," the tribunal ruling states in Article 939. It adds that no discounts were ever contem- plated, let alone applied, in line with provisions found in the agreement, while the conces- sion was in operation. The tribunal also gave short shrift to the government's ar- gument that failure to meet the milestones was justification to discount the fees paid to Stew- ard for healthcare services. In Article 954, the tribunal says it has no need to examine 'the failure to meet concession milestones' argument. "This appears to be an issue and source of considerable confu- sion in the minds of the GoM [Government of Malta] and its representatives, and where, in the Tribunal's view, the Delia Judgments have reached ques- tionable conclusions on this matter," the tribunal states. Key players did not testify In a table accompanying its judgment, the tribunal then lists the benefits received by either side from the agreement. Steward received benefits worth €884.6 million, while the government received services in kind worth €889.4 million. As a result, Steward ended up with a balance in their favour of €4.8 million. Interestingly, none of the key people from Steward and the Maltese Government who were involved in the conces- sion were summoned to testi- fy by the parties. Although the tribunal states their testimony was unlikely to have changed its findings, it felt the need to underscore the absence of peo- ple like Armin Ernst, Ralph de La Torre, Konrad Mizzi, Chris Fearne and the permanent sec- retaries at the health and Gozo ministries, among others. "Notably, neither side offered evidence from those people who were either decision mak- ers or very closely associated with the Concession, be it at its initial or final stages or in between," the tribunal notes in Article 168, and adds in Arti- cle 172: "Given the substantial sums at stake in this arbitra- tion, it might have been ex- pected that testimony would be provided by those with the most direct knowledge of the facts." The ICC ruling may have put a lid on litigation proceed- ings between the government and Steward but it does not alter the fact that 10 years af- ter the hospitals concession agreement was conceived and signed, Malta is still without the promised healthcare fa- cilities and may have lost its chance to reclaim the millions that flowed to Steward. Steward's invoices never challenged during concession's lifetime In its final outcome, the tribunal ruled that after considering the claims made by Steward and the Maltese Government's counter claims, Malta would have to pay the now-bankrupt American company €4.8 million with interest.