Lingua Vista Ltd runs an English-language school in St Julian’s and has been a client since 2018. The firm is its company secretary, provides its registered office and keeps its books. The periodic review fell due in February 2026 and has not been completed. It is now the second week of June.
- The client: incorporated in Malta in 2016. Six classrooms, around forty teachers at the height of the summer, students mainly from Italy, Spain, Turkey, Japan and Brazil. Turnover €1,400,000. The 2024 accounts were audited without qualification, VAT and payroll are up to date, and the school’s teaching licence was renewed in January.
- Ownership and control: Anthony Cutajar holds 100% and is the sole director. Maltese, resident in Malta, identity verified in 2018. Screening returned nothing then and nothing on the re-run in February.
- What changed: during 2025 the school began recruiting a material share of its students through an agent network. €610,000 was received that year from fourteen agent entities, which remit fees net of their commission. Nothing about the arrangement was on the file before the review.
- The four requests, sent 18 February: updated identification for the director; confirmation that the ownership was unchanged; an updated description of the business; and the agency agreements together with a list of the agents.
- What came back: the first three within a fortnight. On the fourth he wrote on 3 March, “I’ll get you the contracts”. Since then there has been no reply to five emails, two letters to his home address and three telephone messages.
- What the firm can see anyway: the school is trading. The website is taking bookings for summer 2026, the payroll ran in March, April and May, and the firm filed the first-quarter VAT return in April on his written instruction. The firm’s own fees are paid by standing order and are up to date.
- What the firm has been able to establish itself: nine of the fourteen agents can be named from the remittance references and screening on those nine returns nothing. Five cannot be identified at all. Three of the remittances came from payment institutions rather than from an agent. Nothing on the file shows what the commission rates are.
- What the office manager said: in passing, to the firm’s bookkeeper on 2 June, that Mr Cutajar has been in Italy since March dealing with his father’s estate and “isn’t dealing with anything”. Nothing has been heard from him directly.
- The firm’s appointments: company secretary and registered office provider, both held since 2018. The company’s annual return falls due in September. The firm holds no money for the company and no client account has ever been operated for it.
- The file otherwise: eight years, no previous difficulty, every earlier review completed on time, and no adverse media on the company or on Mr Cutajar at any point.