Citizenship: The man behind the "golden passport" business | Capital+

For a man whose outstanding professional achievements have just been declared unlawful by the EU's highest court, Christian Kälin appears defiant.

"If Europe decides to go backward, let them go backward. But the rest of the world is moving forward, and there's only one direction," said Kälin, group chairman of Henley & Partners, a London-based consulting firm . The firm has developed and marketed passport and residence permit programs in more than 40 countries.

This month, the European Court of Justice invalidated Malta's Citizenship by Investment program. The program allowed people to acquire a Maltese passport—and thus EU citizenship—in exchange for a one-time payment of €600,000 and the purchase or rental of a property. The ECJ found that the program, developed jointly with Henley, "turned the acquisition of citizenship into a mere commercial transaction."