In his final months in the post, Malta International Airport chief executive Markus Klaushofer made a lot of “suspicious” trips abroad and on one occasion had asked for the company’s 10-year strategic plan, a tribunal hearing an unfair dismissal case was told today.
The Austrian national who held the post between 2012 and January last year, is vehemently denying that he leaked sensitive company information, saying such claims were only intended to tarnish his reputation.
Former MIA chief financial officer Austin Calleja testified that unlike his predecessors, the former CEO would rarely deal with the company’s procedural matters, describing him as a being more of a “strategic type”. Though he used to travel regularly, the witness said that in his final months, the former CEO’s trips intensified and had raised suspicion.
“On one occasion he was in Paris and asked me for the company’s 10-year business plan which I duly sent him by e-mail,” the former CFO told the tribunal presided by Edmund Tabone.
Mr Calleja added that he did not know why sucha request had been made while noting that such sensitive information was not in the public domain.
The witness also remarked that in spite of the fact that he had doubts about a number trips which in his opinion were made for no valid reason, he still gave his go-ahead to cover these expenses.
“No one ever refused the CEO's travels,” he remarked.
The first of these trips were related to talks with Ryanair in London, he said.
Mr Calleja noted that following one of these meetings, questions had been raised as the former CEO had flown back from Paris instead of the UK.
MIA chairman Nikolaus Gretzmacher had previously told the tribunal that the former CEO had furnished Paris-based private equity firm Antin Infrastructure in Paris with adjusted traffic forecasts in a bid to obtain a higher price for the airport’s shares which would be acceptable to Vienna International Airport.
The MIA chairman had said that after sacking the CEO, an investigation carried out by the airport revealed that Mr Klaushofer had spent 220 days away from the island in 2014.
In a statement also given before the tribunal, Mr Klaushofer claimed that it was the airport management that had “presumably” leaked the story about his departure to newspaper MaltaToday with the intention to put him in bad light.
Mr Klaushofer explained in some detail how he was summoned to a meeting in January last year while he was in Vienna attending a board meeting and asked to step down.
He claimed that he was offered a €400,000 golden handshake by his predecessor Julian Jaeger, who was still a representative of majority shareholder Vienna International Airport. The offer was made on condition he did not take the case to court, a tribunal or any authority. Another condition was that he would refrain from making any negative remarks about MIA.
Mr Klaushofer said the offer was in the form of a draft agreement which he refused to sign saying it was a form of blackmail to get rid of him.
The former CEO claimed that immediately after turning down the offer he was informed that he would be removed from the post.
The Austrian had been employed on a three-year contract with an annual salary of €147,100, excluding perks. Before the end of his term, his contract was renewed until June 30, 2017, and had his salary increase to €175,000 a year. He also had a performance bonus of 50 per cent of his annual salary. He said there were never any issues regarding his performance.
Ron Galea Cavallazzi is representing MIA, while Lawyer Cedric Mifsud is appearing for Mr Klaushofer.