A leading stockbroker has called for the director-general of the Malta Financial Services Authority, Andrè Camilleri, to resign, accusing him of failing to tell wronged Bank of Valletta investors what an MFSA investigation had found.

Instead of informing the investors who had lost money about the investigation findings, the MFSA had passed their names to the bank without consulting them first, said Paul Bonello, managing director of Finco Trust Group of Companies.

The MFSA screened those who invested in the failed BOV-run La Valette Property Fund to see who of them were eligible for compensation beyond that offered by the bank. On Thursday, the regulator said it had given the bank a list of eligible investors and expected BOV to pay them “as soon as possible”.

Eligible investors – those who should not have been classified as “experienced investors” – were identified following a file review by independent consultants Mazars.

Mr Bonello has been at the forefront of efforts to have BOV atone for irregularities in selling the fund, which has landed the bank with a €347,000 regulatory fine and almost €50 million in compensation payouts.

He said the process was unsatisfactory from start to finish.

“The MFSA’s own review found the bank guilty of multiple counts of mis-selling. All investors, not just inexperienced ones, have been wronged.”

He was especially unhappy with the way in which the file review had been concluded: “Any investigation should be transparent and give reasons for its findings. But, in this case, the MFSA’s investigation has done no such thing.”

At the bank’s annual general meeting last December, BOV chairman Fredrick Mifsud Bonnici apologised to clients for the fund debacle, admitting that the bank had failed to reach the standards expected of it and pledging to “do better in the future”.

Numerous attempts to contact Dr Camilleri for his reaction proved futile by the time of going to print.