A company director has been given a suspended jail term by a court after being found guilty of defrauding his business partner in a joint venture which was meant to export scrappage material at a profit.

The case dates back to five years ago when the accused, Charles Abela, 37, a director in Elevators DC Company Limited, had persuaded Alan Vella, director of Price Breakers Limited to invest €4,500 in a scrappage joint venture.

The money would be used to acquire aluminium scrap, which would be sold overseas at a profit. A written agreement signed by the two parties stated that the deal would be concluded within a month, by April 22, 2011, when Mr Vella would receive €8,500.

By the beginning of the following July, Mr Vella had not yet received his profit on this deal, and filed a police report. On his part the accused had said the deal had gone through and he had issued an €8,000 cheque.

The payment, however, could not be affected as the cheque bounced. The defendant argued that there had been some delay in the deposit of funds, which was beyond his control, and even promised to honour the deal.

In his police statement, the accused admitted receiving the payment from Mr Vella, and insisted that he would soon be in a position to pay him his dues.
He had also admitted to channelling the profits from the deal into his own company.

In its decision, the court presided by Magistrate Joe Mifsud noted that four-and-a-half years after he promised to settle his dues, the accused had not yet affected a single payment.

It had been sufficiently proven that the defendant intended to defraud Mr Vella, the court said.

The magistrate also noted that the cheque issued by the accused could have never been cashed, as it lacked the signatures of two other persons.

Consequently Mr Abela was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for four years and ordered to repay Mr Vella €4,500 within six months. Inspector Yvonne Farrugia led the prosecution.