Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/989894
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 JUNE 2018 MATTHEW VELLA THE leader of the Nationalist Party, Adrian Delia, may have settled his outstanding tax bill, but in a civil court, he still fac- es the headache of a claim by one of his former clients. The dispute concerns an extravagant €86,210 fee De- lia charged for securing busi- nessman Boris Arcidiacono a handsome loan from HSBC. The case has been ongo- ing since 2011, after the Boris Arcidiacono furniture firm al- leged Delia had the money paid to him from what remained of an €800,000 loan to settle cred- itors' dues and finance a show- room in Msida. Arcidiacono contends the €86,210 bank draft issued by HSBC to Delia for his services to secure the loan, was never authorised by him. Delia appeared in court this week to deny the claims, as Arcidiacono counsel Tonio Azzopardi suggested that he got the bank to pay him the money after his client first re- fused to pay him a Lm50,000 (€116,500) "success fee". "I did not ask the bank for the money," Delia told the court when Azzopardi asked him whether he had been alone when the bank draft was made out to him after finalising the €800,000 loan deal for Arcidi- acono. "The client was with me that day, and the cheque was issued by the bank…. The cli- ent knew I was to be paid there and then, and the bank had a list of people to pay and affect- ed payment as such. My job was to assist Boris Arcidiacono get the loan, pay creditors and finance a property." Arcidiacono disputes that the final cheque, issued to De- lia, was made out in his pres- ence. Delia said he later went to eat at The Carriage restau- rant with Arcidiacono and his daughter after the bank meet- ing. Delia insisted he could not re- member whether he had given the bank any form of authori- sation from the client to claim the fee. "I don't remember. It was an agreed amount. The client was present and we then provided him with receipts. Arcidiacono was present when I was paid. He didn't contest it then, and wrote back request- ing that an invoice made out to him by Aequitas Management be changed with the Aequitas Legal letterhead." Delia insisted there was no 'bill' presented beforehand for the fee, and that Lm50,000 success fee had been agreed upon verbally. "Arcidiacono said he could not afford the re- tainer so he said he would pay me once I would secure him the loan. That's why we moved from a retainer fee to a lump sum," Delia said. "Arcidiacono later filed a complaint with both HSBC and the Chamber of Advo- cates, to whom I had to give an explanation. The bank carried out an international explana- tion and they found nothing wrong, nor did the Chamber." Delia said that although he was owed payments from his retainer fee with Arcidiacono, he did not sue to request any outstanding balance and in- stead was offered by the client to take goods in kind for the legal office. The firm then sev- ered its relationship with the client. HSBC CEO testifies HSBC employees who wit- nessed the loan transaction have told the court there were no objections at the time. HSBC Malta chief executive officer Andrew Beane said he had reviewed the correspond- ence on the case. "In particular I took notice of a letter to the bank from the client's lawyer which, amongst other things, stated that the client was fully aware and that the lawyer had sent receipts to the client," Beane said, referring to an internal audit carried out on complaint of Arcidiacono. "The bank was acting on behalf on a request from a cli- ent's lawyer. From the bank's perspective [it] has a clear written letter from the client's lawyer instructing it that the client was fully aware of the payment which the bank had administered... I believe the bank has to rely on the instruc- tions given to it by the client's lawyer in good faith." Boris Arcidiacono is insisting Delia's request for the fee was made in the presence of for- mer legal partner Georg Sapi- ano at Aequitas Legal. "Delia was my lawyer in the negotiations and he asked for a hefty fee, which he called a 'success fee' for helping me get the loan. He asked for Lm50,000. I refused, of course, because I was already pay- ing him on retainer and there wasn't much work involved for him, certainly not to justify anything near that amount. I was the one who had to collate all the documents required by the bank." HSBC has insisted that Ar- cidiacono was aware of the schedule of payments to creditors and legal and pro- fessional fees to be paid from the €800,000 loan, and that the firm had only requested that a €20,000 sum be left in the ac- count so as to finance struc- tural works at an Msida show- room. But Arcidiacono told the court that the cheque issued to Delia by the bank was not counter-signed by him, unlike the five cheques issued on the same day by the bank to settle the firm's dues to its creditors. The cheque was also redeemed that very same day. Arcidiacono has suggested that the bank had a close re- lationship with Aequitas Le- gal. "Dr Sapiano actually told me that it was thanks to them that I would get the loan from HSBC because their firm gives them millions in business, he said, through a remote pay- ments billing agency." However, Arcidiacono only complained in 2010 with the bank as to why it had issued the €86,210 fee to Adrian De- lia. HSBC employee Eric Ma- mon said he had been told by Delia, who was leading the negotiations on the loan, "that there was an agreement that should he manage to save the Msida showroom the company had, Delia would be paid the sum of Lm50,000 (€116,500)." Arcidiacono is also disput- ing the receipts from Aequitas Legal sent to him by HSBC: one from Aequitas Legal and the other from associated firm Aequitas Management for the combined sum of €86,210. "I pointed out to the bank that I never deal with Aequitas Management, which is Dr De- lia's and Dr Sapiano's business firm," Arcidiacono said. HSBC later sent two receipts from Aequitas Legal: one numbered T6778 and dated 2 September 2009, for the sum of €48,450, replacing the ear- lier invoice issued by Aequitas Management Ltd; the other numbered T6683, dated 23 June 2009 and for the sum of €37,760 – together totalling €86,210. "The tax invoices were both post-dated and issued by Aequitas Legal," Arcidiacono said, "but HSBC made out the cheque to Delia's personal name. I asked for documen- tary proof of where and when he had deposited the cheque, but the bank was not able to give me that. I strongly suspect that the cheque was merely a formality and that Dr Delia came to some arrangement with the bank under which he would claim the amount left in my loan facility as fees due to him, without my consent or a supporting invoice presented to me, and this amount would be set off by the bank against what he himself owed the same bank." mvella@mediatoday.com.mt NEWS Opposition leader Adrian Delia is fending off a headache in court after a former client, Boris Arcidiacono (pictured left), accused him of getting HSBC bank to pay him a 'success fee' from the €800,000 loan he negotiated for Arcidiacono. Both HSBC and the Chamber of Advocates have said they find nothing irregular about the payment Delia denies taking sneaky €86,000 fee in dispute with former client 79 89 35 23 5 74 28 61 02-06-2018 Draw No: 726 Delia insisted there was no 'bill' presented beforehand for the fee, and that Lm50,000 success fee had been agreed upon verbally