[6][7][8] Henley & Partners has been criticised for its core business model, which detractors believe to threaten the fight against cross-border corruption and crime.
[10][11] Originally founded in the 1970s, Henley & Partners was re-formed in 1997 through the combination of a private client immigration consultancy and a corporate and family services company.
In the late 1990s and through the 2000s, the firm advised wealthy businesspeople and individuals move their businesses and families around the world, largely through the acquisition of residence and citizenship from Austria, Canada, Hong Kong, US, Switzerland, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
[7] The firm restructured St. Kitts and Nevis's citizenship-by-investment program, incorporating donations to support the country's transition to tourism and services following the closure of the sugar industry in 2005.
[8][7] The St. Kitts and Nevis government outsourced its escrow services and application processing to Henley, as well as paid the company to promote the country's program internationally.
[7] According to London School of Economics Professor Kristin Surak, the precise dynamics between Henley and St. Kitts and Nevis are murky, as "there are virtually no accessible records of the negotiations, and those involved in the development of the program offer few details when asked.
[7] According to a 2015 report by the International Monetary Fund, the program helped St. Kitts and Nevis get out of a four-year recession, along with "supporting economic recovery, improving macroeconomic balances and boosting bank liquidity."
"[29] In November 2014, Canada announced it was requiring St. Kitts and Nevis citizens to obtain a visa from 22 November 2014, due to concerns about “identity management practices within its Citizenship by Investment program.”[30] Following the announcement, the government of St. Kitts and Nevis initiated a recall on all biometric passports issued between January 2012 and July 2014, and replaced them with new passports which showed the holder's place of birth as well as any previous name changes.
SIDF invested a part of its money into a failed resort business and a company owned by a Henley associate with ties to chairman Christian Kälin.
[8] According to 2022 reporting by the OCCRP, there is evidence that Henley CEO Christian Kälin helped to finance the successful 2010 re-election campaign of Denzil Douglas, the St. Kitts and Nevis prime minister.
[35] Arton Capital, a competing firm, filed a judicial protest, appealing the decision to award the contract to its competitor, claiming that Henley & Partners provided consultation to the government on a similar program before.
[40] It was reported at the time that officials believed the screening process would be compromised because Malta had outsourced the vetting of citizenship applicants to a single company.
In September 2020, her son, journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia, gave a Maltese court of inquiry her notes, call logs, and the leaked emails.
[41][42][43] In May 2018, English PEN released a public statement about concerns around the libels cases, from senior government officials of Malta and Henley & Partners, faced by Caruana Galizia’s family and The Shift News, an independent media outlet.
[44][45] The company representatives told a European Parliament delegation that was investigating the rule of law in Malta, "The point of the email was to ask the government if they would be ok with a legal action H&P was planning to take (which can have political repercussions).
[6] In an undercover video shot as part of the coverage following the leaks, an employee of the firm advised prospective applicants to only "do the bare minimum" in satisfying the scheme's criteria.
[47] The documents also showed that Henley & Partners knew of government's plans to launch a citizenship-by-investment programme two months before the public tender for a company to operate it was announced.