When Jonathan De Giovanni was in the process of choosing a brand for his corporate and trustee services firm back in 2022, he chose to give a nod to Greek mythology’s Prometheus – the titan god who stole fire from Olympus, gifting it to humanity. In fact, Prometheus is attributed to be the father of knowledge, civilisation, and positive disruption. Promethean Corporate Services strives to encapsulate all these values, he shares.

A lawyer by profession, Jonathan has been helping clients obtain the full benefit of what Malta has to offer within a regulatory framework since 2004. Promethean Corporate Services was born with the mission to position itself at the forefront of the corporate legal sector in Malta.

“The knowledge and know-how of our experts ensure that our clients receive solutions which fit their needs,” declares Jonathan who occupies the role of Managing Director and CEO at the law firm. “That is the central core-value that unites us with our office in Milan, and our collaborating sister firms in London, and Guernsey and other parts of the world. Ultimately, our mission is to provide our clients with an excellent service that builds strong, long-term relationships.”

Internationalisation has run deep in the veins of Promethean Corporate Services from inception, as even in previous iterations of the legal firm, business has always been predominantly focused on the international market.

“Promethean is an international brand, with links across the globeso, it would be safe to say that about 95-100 per cent of our client coverage has always been international,” Jonathan declares. “We are agents for Malta’s passport programme, while we provide tax consultancy to international clients. We also provide international corporate services and and an infinity of other areas, including aviation, yachting and financial services – all areas of interest for high net value individuals.”

As massively disruptive forces continue to change the way we do business, the same goes for the legal frameworks that govern such business, as Jonathan continues to explain. “Today we no longer talk about Financial Regulation, or Tax Law as the be all and end all, as we did up to a few years ago. Instead, we talk about Fintech, AI and the metaverse, which are opening up entirely new realms of the law that we simply didn’t envisage previously. This naturally opens a vast avenue of opportunity for ambitious law firms like ours, in the field of regulatory innovation. In fact, we work closely with clients who are actively interested in investing in these new arenas, and require expert guidance and legal advice,” he illustrates.

“Continuing to operate how  we did in the past is very limiting, and quite frankly not the vision of our firm,” Jonathan asserts. “We are lucky to be living in extremely exciting times, when the fast-paced evolution of technology and the economy offers us an ever-changing scenario, with so much constantly happening around us. That is why we are continuously investing in our teams and human resources, to ensure that we are abreast with the very latest trends that will determine the way we do business tomorrow. We encourage our junior lawyers to endeavour to further their studies at master’s in cutting-edge areas of interest. We truly believe that this brings an unrivalled wealth to our firm, which allows us to provide an even more superior service to our discerning clientele.”

In its young history, Malta has always been very innovative in coming up with robust regulation that successfully attracted brand new economic sectors to its shores. Financial services and gaming areperhaps the flagship of this high-level policy, and more recently there has been a similar approach towards crypto currency and blockchain technology.

“Promethean Corporate Services is in the perfect place to assist both the ultimate beneficial owner as well as the company they would own, to navigate these regulatory frameworks successfully and ultimately attract investment towards Malta,” Jonathan explains. “We believe that regulation is essential to provide the necessary structure for investors, against which to map their journeys with us. However, it is fundamental that such regulation does not have the opposite effect and becomes a stumbling block that stifles investors from setting up companies in Malta.”

“We are encouraged by programmes run by the Maltese Government such as the ones aimed at helping start-ups set-up shop on our shores, which we see as clear indications of the Government’s policy to encourage investment in new ambitious, value-added areas of the economy,” Jonathan observes.

Promethean Corporate Services operates like a boutique law firm that strives to provide tailor-made solutions both in regulatory which includes areas such as financial services and trust law, as well as tax assistance, which are specific to the needs of the particular client, and which pays meticulous attention to detail.

In a post-COVID world, Promethean Corporate Services is more efficient than ever, Jonathan attests, as it has kept some important lessons learnt from the pandemic months. “If there is one thing we learnt from COVID, it is that we are no longer tied by the constraints of the past. Though nothing will ever replace the human touch, which is crucial in our line of work, professional and motivated staff do not need offices to carry out their jobs. We have learnt that we can do business differently and from anywhere, and this makes us even more flexible to provide an exceptional service to our customers,” Jonathan concludes.