Desk officials at the Malta Business Registry (MBR) have been instructed to hold back from engaging in back and forth discussions over matters deemed to be trivial following complaints by financial services practitioners.
According to Registrar Geraldine Spiteri Lucas, company services providers said that such discussions were holding up company registrations and adding extra layers of bureaucracy to the process.
Speaking at the Institute of Financial Services Practitioners’ annual conference, held in May, Dr Spiteri Lucas responded to concerns that MBR officials had become “overly detailed” in their supervision of documents submitted by companies through their agents.
“I tend to agree that our role is sometimes going beyond what is necessary,” she said, explaining that MBR officials only see the end result of a transaction – it is the practitioners who have the full picture.
While acknowledging that a balance must be struck between the duties of practitioners and those of the Registry, Dr Spiteri Lucas also made it clear that “certain things cannot be overlooked”.
She mentioned two examples, falling on either side of the line of necessity.
“On the one hand, there are some issues we cannot ignore. If a company director resigns in December but signs off on the accounts in May, we are duty-bound to point this out and ask the practitioner to amend accordingly,” she said.
“On the other hand, there is at times a lot of debate on how the currency of capital is calculated, depending on a variety of factors. Ultimately, it is not our role to oversee these matters – and we will not be doing so going forward.”
Dr Spiteri Lucas however pointed out that this leniency comes at a price. The withdrawal of registered documents from the public portal requires a court order, and practitioners may well be depending more on this procedure since desk officials will be refraining from pointing out potential errors.
She added that she hopes that these changes contribute to increased efficiency in Malta’s corporate registry.
Turning to recent successes, the Registrar noted that 70 per cent of companies are incorporated within 24 hours. “Those that aren’t registered immediately will either require correction, have missing documents, or we identified some red flags in their documentation,” she said.
She also noted that Malta remains one of the most transparent jurisdictions worldwide, and admitted that although the process to get Malta compliant with the Financial Action Task Force’s recommendations and get off the grey list proved to serve as a learning curve for all involved, it did contribute to a change of culture and allowed for marked improvements.
Dr Spiteri Lucas also appealed to the delegates present to avoid pinning the blame for delays on the MBR, saying that such delays are often the result of other registries’ mistakes.
“If they key in information wrongly, we need to clean it up. I would appreciate it if you don’t always blame the Maltese Registry.”
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