Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/992522
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 JUNE 2018 NEWS €12.5m €12.5m €15m Palatine SA Werel AB Palatine SA Larmag Industries Prime Fund DB8 Opportunity Fund LX Median Trust Reditum Falcon Funds was a pension fund marketed in Sweden but whose directors are Maltese. It became the subject of a criminal investigation, since then closed, after the Swedish pensions authority claimed it was unable to pay back €247 million in savings because of 'major investment fraud'. The MFSA put Falcon Funds under the control of auditors KPMG, and gave its directors – Tonio Fenech, Ian Zammit and Joseph Xuereb – an official reprimand for failing investors, prohibiting the directors from accepting any new appointments which require MFSA approval for two years. Temple Asset Management, run by Anthony Farrell, was the investment manager for the pension fund. The MFSA has fined TAM a total of €612,000 for breaches 23 different standard licence conditions and had its licence suspended. TAM and Emil Ingmanson – who has since been arrested in Sweden – are also being sued by Falcon Funds. An investigation by the Swedish pensions authority, prompted by several complaints, revealed that clients from another pension fund, which underwent a merger with another fund, had been misleadingly transferred to Falcon Funds. The Swedish TV programme Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts) in 2016 had crucially revealed an important email that showed that Temple were setting up Ingmanson to take over Falcon Funds' investment decisions with his own company, Falcon Asset Management – which he registered in Malta. The upshot was a grave conflict of interest at play: money deposited by Swedish pensioners with Falcon Funds was being invested by its investment manager, Temple, into financial instruments owned by Ingmanson, while knowing he planned to replace it as investment manager and take control of investment decisions. Tonio Fenech was at first defensive of Ingmanson, who said he was the subject of unfair press in Sweden. "The claims made of the links with Ingmanson are at the least speculative," Fenech first said in June 2016. He described him as a "person of repute", even declaring that he had "no involvement in the selling or investments decisions of the fund." Anthony Farrell Swedish entrepreneur Emil Ingmanson was the first to promote Falcon Funds to the Swedish pensions authority – through the alleged knowledge of Falcon Funds' own investment managers, Temple Asset Management BACK STORY YANNICK PACE ALEX Saliba, the head of the EU Secretariat within the Eu- ropean Affairs ministry, is like- ly to contest next year's MEP elections on the Labour Party ticket. Labour Party sources told MaltaToday that Saliba has been encouraged by many within the party to run, and is almost certain to submit his candidature. They were quick to point out that Saliba has been "close" to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat since before his election as party leader. The sources said that in ad- dition to being supported by a considerable number of the party's delegates and activists, Saliba also had the backing of some Labour MPs. He was recently elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, having garnered the largest number of delegates' votes. "Many have approached me and told me I should do it, but I am yet to take a final decision. I still need to discuss it with my family," he said when contact- ed about the rumours. Asked what had led him to consider such a move, Saliba stressed that he wanted to help the party in any way he could. "When the party calls you, you have to make a sacrifice and come forward," Saliba said. "If I can help the party consolidate its three seats in the European Parliament and possibly get enough votes to win its fourth, I will put my name forward." Saliba said that before doing so he would have to discuss his candidature with the party's administration and the Prime Minister. "Before I confirm with the Prime Minister I will not take any decisions." A lawyer by profession, Saliba has been involved in the Labour Party since he was 16 and was most recently the President of Forum Zaghzagh Laburisti, the Labour Party's youth wing. Alex Saliba mulling possible MEP run The head of the EU Secretariat within the European Affairs ministry said he has been encouraged to do so by party officials but has not yet come to a decision