On 8 May 2017, Pilatus Bank sued Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist from Malta, in the United States in the Maricopa County superior court of Arizona, the state where her website’s internet domain registrar GoDaddy.com’s headquarters are located. The lawsuit, which had an unspecified claim for damages, was filed when Caruana Galizia had alleged that the bank had processed a $1 million transfer from a Dubai company to the wife of the Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat. The allegations included that Muscat’s wife was the beneficial owner of Egrant Inc, a secret offshore company revealed in the Panama Papers. In the lawsuit, Pilatus stated that Caruana Galizia’s comments were defamatory and false and that “Pilatus Bank was not set up to criminally launder money… Mr Sadr has not committed any criminal acts.” Caruana Galizia was assassinated on 16 October 2017 by a car bomb outside her home. She had not been notified of the lawsuit before she died and Pilatus Bank filed a notice of dismissal a day after her assassination. Pilatus Bank was officially closed down in 2018.