A case challenging the free transfer of shares in the National Bank of Malta to the Government that took place in 1974 was yesterday declared by a court not to be time barred.
The case was filed in 1977 by NBM Investments Limited against the then Prime Minister Dom Mintoff, the finance minister of the time and the Bank’s Council of Administration.
The court was requested to declare that the transfers of National Bank shares made by Maria Colombus, Alice von Brockdorff and Violet Calleja Gera in 1974 to the Government without any consideration were null and void.
NBM Investments Ltd had acquired the litigious rights of these women in 1976 and had contested the share transfers.
On their part, the authorities claimed that NBM’s claim was barred by the passage of time for such actions were barred by the lapse of two years.
Mr Justice Joseph R. Micallef, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, yesterday declared that NBM had filed an action for the rescission of the share transfers on the basis of defect of consent on the part of the shareholders, on the basis that no payment had been made for the shares, because no stamp duty was paid on the transfer and because the transfer had not taken place by notarial deed.
The law provided that such an action had to be filed within two years from when the defect had occurred.
But this period could be extended by the filing of a judicial letter against the defendant.
It resulted this two-year period had been successfully interrupted when a judicial letter was filed against the authorities in 1975 and when the company lodged its claim in 1977.
The court added that this case had been heard in conjunction with other cases of a constitutional nature and it was only now that the so-called ordinary pleas, such as that of time barring, could be decided upon.
The judge ordered the case to continue next December.
The judgment will be seen as a victory for shareholders, although the Government can still appeal.
They have long been fighting for compensation over the savings and investments they lost when Mr Mintoff’s Labour government took over the National Bank and set up the Bank of Valletta in the early 1970s.
The Government’s bid to drop the 35-year-old court case by claiming it is time-barred had sparked outrage among those who expected a Nationalist Administration to deliver justice.