Updated 3.41pm - The person nominated by the Office of the Prime Minister to become non-executive chair of the Malta Gaming Authority - Marlene Seychell - insisted before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday afternoon that she did not have a conflict of interest as she did not sit on the board of any company involved in gaming.

Ms Seychell, 55 of Swieqi, was grilled by MPs following a Times of Malta report which noted that she currently sits on the board of directors of Main Street Complex PLC, a company which hosts a bingo hall regulated by the MGA.

The board includes Joe Gasan, a co-shareholder of the complex and a shareholder of Bingo & Royale, the bingo hall which operates from the same complex. The licence of the bingo hall is issued and regulated by the MGA.

Ms Seychell said she had been given legal advice that she had no conflict of interest. She said relations between Main Street and the tenants were handled by the management, not the directors.

Questioned further by Nationalist MP Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, Ms Seychell confirmed that the company board includes Mr Gasan, who is a shareholder of the bingo hall.

She said she was prepared to give up the directorship if required.

Times of Malta quoted gaming industry sources as saying that apart from the fact that Ms Seychell had no insight into the gaming industry, being on the same board of directors as Mr Gasan, an entrepreneur in the gaming business, among others, posed a serious conflict of interest.

“This alone should disqualify Ms Seychell to act as the regulator of the industry. She has a clear conflict of interest, and the OPM ought to know about this,” the sources said.

Ms Seychell also sits on a number of other private companies, including Calamatta Cuschieri Finance plc, and is a director and shareholder in Mec Developments Ltd and SPTT Properties Ltd.

Ms Seychell publicly endorsed Joseph Muscat before the 2013 general election at a Labour general conference, saying that she was switching political allegiance.
Economy Minister Chris Cardona appointed her to sit on the board of Malta Enterprise.

Unlike her predecessor, Joe Cuschieri, who was handpicked by the OPM to become the chief executive officer of the Malta Financial Services Authority, Ms Seychell will be a non-executive chairman at MGA.

In her replies to questions by the parliamentary committee, Ms Seychell said she only learnt of her nomination some three weeks ago.

She said her priority would be anti-money laundering and anti-financing of terrorism as well as safeguarding Malta’s reputation. She aimed at limiting risk as much as possible, she said, observing that licences issued to Italian gaming companies had dropped from some 60 to just eight.

She said she also intended to hold wide-raging consultations with experts in the industry aimed at further improving regulation.

The parliamentary committee decided to recommend approval of Ms Seychell's nomination. There were no objections.