A Maltese firm at the centre of a US investigation into a $100 million insider trading scandal yesterday had its assets unfrozen by the Attorney General.

Exante Ltd, a St Julians company, was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission when its assets were frozen. The company was allegedly involved in a scheme which saw traders and hackers make as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years.

In a statement, the company yesterday said that all criminal and civil allegations brought against it had been dropped by the Attorney General and by local government bodies.

The company also published a letter from the AG’s office saying that the order to freeze the assets, known as an attachment order, had been revoked.

Legal sources, however, told the Times of Malta that the unfreezing of assets was standard procedure and did not necessarily mean that the company was no longer under investigation.

Attachment orders normally last 45 days and are automatically closed at the end of this period unless an extension is requested. The sources said that several orders had been closed in recent days but investigations into those cases were ongoing.

Questions sent to the police about whether Exante was still being investigated were not replied to by the time of writing.

The sources added that the Attorney General did not conduct investigations of this nature and so it would not be in a position to conclude them.

“It is the police that would carry out such investigations not the AG’s office,” a source has revealed.

Meanwhile, Exante’s communication director Patrick O’ Brien said the company had fully cooperated with the local authorities and had provided all documentation.

“We were sure from the outset we would be cleared of all wrongdoing,” he said.

Mr O’ Brien had last month said the company was not a defendant in the criminal proceedings initiated in the US and none of its directors, owners or employees had been charged.

The SEC, a federal agency tasked with maintaining fair markets, has claimed the companies utilised leaked company earnings reports from a hacking scheme between 2010 and 2015.

American investigators believed that Exante could have made in excess of $24 million through the scam over the past five years.