Urs Meisterhans resigns from Cobalt board

The Swiss financier Urs Meisterhans resigned from his position on the board of directors of Cobalt Air and Cobalt New Age Airlines Group Limited, it emerged on Friday.

“We heard days ago that Meisterhans had resigned but we have not been officially informed,” Alecos Michaelides, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Transport said when asked by the Cyprus Business Mail for a comment.

Andrew Madar, chief executive officer of Cobalt, which six months ago received its commercial licence from the Air Traffic Licensing Authority -a body chaired by Michaelides-, informed the company’s workers in an email on Friday about Meisterhans’ resignation.

“Please note Mr. Urs Meisterhans has formally resigned from the board of directors for Cobalt (sic) and New Age (CNAAG),” Madar said . “Urs is now asking for a consulting position within Cobalt but that role has not been defined nor approved by the full CNAAG board”.

“In line with correct business protocols, until further notice, Urs should not have access to any Cobalt financials, business plans or other sensitive material,” Madar said in his email.

Meisterhans, indicted on at least two counts in Switzerland, had a seat on the board, but held no shares in the company.

According to a US court order issued in July 2015, Meisterhans was indicted for “aggravated money laundering, securities fraud and negligence in financial operations” on May 20, 2015 in connection to his alleged role in the “Penny Stock Scheme”.

In June this year, the office of the Swiss attorney general confirmed that it had filed three indictments against Meisterhans without specifying their nature or the time he had been indicted. One of the three indictments “was rejected on the grounds that investigations are still ongoing against two other suspects in the same matter and that all three persons should be tried together in order to fulfil the principle of unity of judgment and avoid the possibility of contradictory outcomes,” said Linda von Burg, a spokesperson at the Berne-based OAG, in an email response.

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