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Standfirst: In August 2025, Malta grew to become the unlikely stage for a conflict between a fintech agency and one of many island’s strongest newspapers. Papaya Ltd’s response – measured, legalistic, and paired with concrete operational strikes, now stands as a case research in how monetary establishments can construct resilience beneath strain. Drawing on the joint experience of Lincoln’s Inn barrister (UK) Hamna Zain and former Deutsche Financial institution skilled Davor Zilic (croatian fintech specialist), this text examines what occurred, and what it tells us concerning the uneasy steadiness between regulation, journalism and finance.
In early August 2025, Papaya Ltd – a licensed Maltese digital cash establishment (EMI), discovered itself within the eye of a media storm. The Occasions of Malta, the nation’s largest day by day, despatched the corporate an inventory of probing questions which, Papaya argued, would have compelled it to disclose confidential data from a 2021 compliance audit. The agency turned to the courts, asking for a brief injunction to forestall publication. A choose granted a brief protecting measure pending a full listening to on its request for an injunction, that blocked the newspaper from publishing an as-yet-unwritten article concerning the firm. The request for a substantive injunction was in the end refused on 12 August. This authorized motion, triggered after one of many newspaper’s journalists despatched inquiries to Papaya, prompted heated debate about press freedom, censorship, and the duties of each media and monetary corporations.
The headlines have been fast and emotive. “Occasions of Malta hit by court docket ‘gagging order’ from e-money agency”. “We’ve been gagged. This is the reason it issues.” For days, the injunction was portrayed as an assault on press freedom. The newspaper itself argued that “stopping a journalist from publishing a narrative is recognised in all democratic nations as unlawful and a violation of the journalist’s elementary proper to freedom of expression – a major pillar of democracy.” In its editorial, it warned: “This isn’t how press freedom works in a democratic society… If such orders grow to be frequent observe – if journalists will be silenced primarily based on hypotheticals – then significant investigative journalism in Malta will grow to be almost not possible.”
That sentiment was echoed on the European stage. Maltese MEP David Casa described the injunction as “an unprecedented and chilling assault on press freedom. Such censorship undermines democracy, the general public’s proper to know, and journalism within the public curiosity.”
But the info level to one thing narrower: a short-lived, lawful mechanism designed to present the courts time to weigh whether or not disclosure would breach confidentiality guidelines.
For traders – notably in Italy, the place Maltese fintechs are intertwined with banking and capital flows – the episode is greater than a media spat. It raises a systemic query: how ought to regulated establishments reply when compliance obligations collide with journalistic imperatives?
Skilled voices
Hamna Zain: “Not censorship, however the regulation in motion”
For British lawyer Hamna Zain, portraying Papaya’s injunction as a “ban on press freedom” is deceptive. “Each democracy recognises that freedoms include limits,” she explains. “Injunctions will not be blunt gags – they’re tightly outlined authorized cures, designed to forestall irreparable hurt whereas the courts deliberate.”
She factors to precedents throughout Europe. In Cream Holdings v Banerjee (UK, 2004), the Home of Lords upheld the precept that injunctions will be lawful instruments when confidentiality and reputational hurt are at stake, supplied the claimant meets a excessive evidential threshold. In Barclays Financial institution v Guardian (UK, 2009), judges ordered the elimination of leaked inside memos on tax methods, ruling they have been confidential and unlawfully obtained. And in Luxembourg’s LuxLeaks case, PwC secured convictions in opposition to whistleblowers who leaked confidential tax rulings – a stark reminder that even in transparency-minded EU states, monetary secrecy carries authorized power.
“In gentle of those circumstances, utilizing the courts to defend confidentiality just isn’t an assault on democracy,” Zain argues. “It’s democracy in motion: rights clashing, being examined, and resolved beneath judicial scrutiny.”
Davor Zilic: “A false and harmful dichotomy”
Croatian fintech professional Davor Zilic is blunter nonetheless: “The injunction utilized to at least one doc, not a complete newspaper. To faux society should select between the rule of regulation and freedom of expression is a false and harmful dichotomy.” What worries him just isn’t the court docket’s actions, however the selective framing by the Occasions of Malta. “Outdated compliance findings have been recycled as in the event that they have been breaking information,” he says. “In the meantime Papaya’s remedial work and partnerships went largely unreported.”
In Papaya’s case, the Occasions of Malta has repeatedly highlighted the tremendous and the corporate’s historic ties to a sanctioned director, Frederic Villa, who resigned in February 2023. But, the identical outlet has given minimal protection to Papaya’s proactive steps, equivalent to its current partnership with SME Financial institution to reinforce the safeguarding of buyer funds, that not solely aligns with current regulatory requirements but additionally anticipates future regulatory developments and is already consistent with the forthcoming PSD3 necessities on the diversification of safeguarding strategies. This sort of selective reporting doesn’t serve the general public curiosity; it serves an agenda. Who stands to learn?
Zain: “Recycling outdated controversies”
Zain shares that concern. She factors out that the tremendous on the coronary heart of the story – €279,000 issued in 2023 and nonetheless beneath attraction – stemmed from a 2021 audit. By mid-2025, the corporate had already spent years beneath regulatory supervision. “Real public-interest journalism uncovers contemporary wrongdoing or imminent dangers. Right here, the narrative was constructed from stale materials,” she says.
Zilic: “The presumption of innocence is in danger”
Zilic warns that treating allegations beneath attraction as settled info undermines a cornerstone of European regulation. “We’re normalising trial by media,” he argues. “The presumption of innocence is being eroded. Regulated corporations can not choose and select which guidelines to comply with – however nor ought to journalists play choose and jury earlier than the courts themselves have spoken.
Zain: “Confidentiality nonetheless issues”
For Zain, the journalist’s questions crossed a line. “Press freedom just isn’t an absolutist licence,” she says. “Shopper information and compliance reviews are protected beneath MFSA guidelines and the EU’s Common Knowledge Safety Regulation (GDPR).
Demanding their disclosure just isn’t legit reporting – it dangers incitement to illegal disclosure.”
Zilic: “What message does this ship to fintech?”
Zilic connects the dots again to Malta’s position as a fintech hub. “If a journalist can demand shopper information and model authorized cures as censorship, the message is evident: for those who’re in fintech, you’re a goal. That’s not the surroundings that fosters development or innovation.”
In conclusion on this level, the Papaya case underscores that accountable journalism should acknowledge authorized boundaries. A free press just isn’t an absolutist license to acquire and print something and the whole lot. Particularly within the monetary sector, some data is protected for legitimate causes. Journalists needs to be cautious to not demand that sources or firms violate the regulation. There are methods to report on monetary misconduct, if it exists, with out compromising shopper confidentiality – for instance, by specializing in systemic points or anonymizing particulars. On this occasion, had Occasions of Malta restricted itself to the very fact of the FIAU tremendous and basic criticisms (which have been public) slightly than looking for the underlying shopper information, the battle might need been averted. By venturing into protected territory, the journalism crossed a line that triggered the corporate’s authorized defensive response. This serves as a cautionary story: the press, too, has a obligation of care when dealing with confidential data, and shouldn’t be seen to encourage illegality within the title of a narrative. As seen within the LuxLeaks case, even when media reporting is framed as whistleblowing, courts should still maintain those that leak or unlawfully acquire protected data accountable beneath secrecy legal guidelines, particularly within the monetary sector.
An even bigger lesson
Neither Zain nor Zilic dispute the significance of a free press. However each argue that conflating judicial safeguards with censorship units a troubling precedent. Papaya’s conflict with the Occasions of Malta is much less about silencing journalists than concerning the limits of lawful disclosure. Of their mixed view, democracy depends upon each pillars – a press free to probe, and a authorized system empowered to guard confidentiality till info are settled.
And that’s the reason the Papaya case issues past Malta. In a small EU state, a single court docket order and a handful of headlines grew to become a proxy struggle over freedom, regulation and monetary credibility. The check is not only for Papaya or for one newspaper, however for Europe itself: can its democracies shield each transparency and due course of on the identical time? If they can’t, the losers is not going to solely be firms or journalists, however the very belief on which Europe’s authorized and monetary programs are constructed.
*This text was paid for. Cryptonomist didn’t write the article or check the platform.