As a minority shareholder with the right to appoint a chairman in Bank of Valletta, any action the government could take with regard to the La Valette Property Fund controversy independently of the board of directors, may expose it to legal action by the other shareholders, the Finance Ministry said this afternoon.
Earlier today, the Labour Party insisted the government could not abdicate its responsibilities with regard to thecontroversy, more so when it was a shareholder of the bank with the right to appoint the chairman.
In a statement in the afternoon, the Finance Ministry appealed to the opposition to be more responsible in its declarations about the fund.
PL finance spokesman Charles Mangion said the Labour Party was disappointed that the bank was being insensitive to the 2,000 investors in the fund, despite the confidence they had shown in the institution when they invested.
This insensitivity was being demonstrated by the fact that the bank, which was a powerful institution, was inviting the small investors to take it to court, if they wished to contest their rights.
The PL said it was also disappointed that the bank had ignored the call by the MFSA to extend the deadline of its offer to buy the investors' shares until all investigations were concluded.
Dr Mangion insisted that the MFSA should publish its full reports on the case, and not just the conclusions.
He said BOV had an important role in the country and the Labour Party respected it as a serious financial institution. It also respected its employees.
Such confidence, it said, should not be harmed, and a fair solution needed to be found to the current situation, to also ensure that the credibility of the financial services industry was not affected.
The ministry said that the FMSA had investigated and decided about the case. The opposition showed it did not want to respect the regulator's independence and wanted the government to get involved in a process when it was not its duty to do so.
As a minority shareholder with the right to appoint a chairman, every government intervention taken independently of the board of directors, who represented all shareholders, exposed the government to legal action by the other shareholders if they felt that the government's intervention would lead them to suffer financial loss.