A group of investors yesterday filed a judicial protest against a financial services company demanding the return of their money and arguing they are in the dark about their €1.3 million investment after it was suspended from operating.

The 14 investors registered the protest against Maltese Cross Financial Services Limited and its three directors – Jena Claude Bugeja, Robert Cutajar and Stephen Spiteri.

They said on August 7, the Malta Financial Services Authority published a public notification declaring that the operations of the company had been suspended.

Since then, the investors have been kept in the dark about what has happened to their money as the company and its directors have remained silent.

The authority said it had revoked its approval of Mr Bugeja to act as a company director, compliance officer and money laundering reporting officer and to provide investment services.

They argued that they were in the dark about their €1.3m investment

It also issued a directive telling Mr Bugeja to resign as a director of the company, desist from providing any financial services and from carrying out any functions within the company, not to access the company’s records, IT systems and its offices and retain and desist from destroying, damaging or altering any documentation which he might have in his possession relating to the company and/or its clients.

On August 22, the authority released another public notice stating that the company did not have material assets belonging to clients and that this could have been the result of manipulation and incorrect use of the money and that the assets could have been lost.

In the light of what happened, the investors said they contacted the company and demanded to be reimbursed for the capital they invested, any interest the investments accumulated and documentation related to the investments.

But they have heard nothing from the company.

Through the protest they demanded that they are returned the money and documentation within two days of them being notified.

Lawyers Adrian Delia and Kris Scicluna signed the protest.