The Egrant inquiry magistrate was told that a UK forensic accountancy firm that analysed Pilatus Bank's servers was set up in May after an "administrative change", the Attorney General confirmed.
Harbinson Forensics was formed two months before Magistrate Aaron Bugeja completed the 15-month-long inquiry into allegations that the Panama company was owned by the Prime Minister’s wife.
Attorney General Peter Grech told Times of Malta that between June 2017 and last month, forensic accounting in relation to the inquiry was carried out by Harbinson Mulholland accountants. However, they branched into the separate company Harbinson Forensics last month.
These people are professionally qualified, experienced and highly respected in their field
“It was agreed that from mid-June 2018, the project delivery, administration and billing of this and other assignments should be transferred to a new limited company owned by the same Jeremy Harbinson called Harbinson Forensics Ltd.
“The service provision and all personnel involved in providing the service remain unchanged. It is simply that, after mid-June, reporting and billing transferred to Harbinson Forensics Ltd,” Dr Grech said in reply to questions from the Times of Malta.
He noted that Harbinson Mulholland requested the inquiring magistrate’s consent for the transfer and he cleared the “administrative change”, with the report on the case being completed earlier this month.
The UK company’s credentials and the fact that it was set up in May were flagged by top Australian financial journalist Neil Chenoweth, who also questioned, via Twitter, why Harbinson Mulholland did not put its name to the report if it had worked on it.
Read: Egrant inquiry finds falsified signatures, differing testimonies and no proof
In the inquiry conclusions, 45 pages of which were published on Sunday, Magistrate Bugeja said the UK-based forensic accounting firm analysed digital data from Pilatus Bank, Nexia BT and its accountants, Brian Tonna and Karl Cini, and MFSP Financial Management Limited.
The magistrate found no documentation linking the Muscat family to Egrant, and the forensic accounting firm detected no such evidence on Pilatus Bank’s servers. The firm informed the magistrate the records it analysed did not indicate any bank accounts or exchanges about opening bank accounts for Egrant, Tillgate or Hearnville.
The latter two companies are owned by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi.
Asked about the newly set up company’s history and for a list of its clients, the Attorney General referred to the Harbinson Mulholland website. He noted that the forensic accountants were “recognised as leading forensic accountants and have completed over 3,000 major forensic accounting assignments. These people are professionally qualified, duly experienced and highly respected in their field.”