The firm is a Maltese corporate services provider, authorised to provide directorship services. It has been approached to set up and administer the European subsidiary of a crypto-asset exchange, and to put one of its own people on that subsidiary’s board. Nothing has been accepted and no engagement letter has been issued.
- The request: incorporate Novachain Europe Ltd in Malta, provide registered office and company secretary, and supply one of the firm’s own people as a director alongside two proposed overseas directors. The fee offered for the directorship is roughly four times the firm’s standard rate, and the applicants have asked whether it can all be completed within two weeks.
- The group: Novachain Ltd, incorporated in the Seychelles in 2021, operates a crypto-asset exchange with around 180,000 registered users trading spot crypto. Until March 2024 it also offered a product paying 9% on stablecoin deposits. The founders raised this themselves at the first meeting, unprompted, and said it was withdrawn on legal advice.
- Regulatory position: Novachain holds no authorisation in Malta or in any other EU or EEA state, and has not applied for one. A national regulator in another Member State published a notice in November 2025 stating that Novachain is not authorised to provide services there.
- What the Maltese company is said to be for: software development and marketing services to the group, billed at cost plus 8%, with no dealings with the group’s customers and no customer money. Expected turnover €180,000 a year. The applicants say they want “an EU presence ahead of a licence application”.
- Substance: no employees are planned in the first year and development is to be subcontracted to a company in Belgrade. The registered office would be the firm’s own address. Of the three proposed directors, only the firm’s would be resident in Malta; the other two are resident in Dubai and Belgrade.
- Ownership: Novachain Ltd is held 55% by Ivan Brozek, a Czech national resident in Dubai, and 45% by Sofia Marchetti, an Italian national resident in Malta since 2024. At the third meeting, asked directly whether anyone else had an interest, Brozek said that 20% of his holding is “held for” a former business partner. He would not give the name.
- Marchetti: resident in Malta, tax registered, a director of two other Maltese companies with filings up to date, and introduced to the firm by a lawyer it has worked with for nine years. Source of wealth given as salary and the 2022 sale of a software business, evidenced by a share purchase agreement and matching bank credits.
- Brozek: source of wealth given as crypto holdings of “around €40 million”, evidenced by screenshots of account balances on Novachain’s own platform and a signed declaration. Nothing further has been provided.
- The website: the group’s site carried a page headed “Novachain Europe — Malta” naming a Maltese company that does not exist. Put to the founders, they said it was a marketing page published early, and it came down the same day.
- Screening and banking: no sanctions match, no PEP result and no adverse media on either founder personally. The group’s fiat flows run through two payment institutions and a bank outside the EU. The Maltese company would hold one local account, for its service fee only.