All content of David Marchant

Bermuda is heading towards a national debate over whether the country wants its stores to open on Sundays and public holidays, say traders.The battle will pit the church and people who want Sunday to remain a day of rest against businesses and Bermudians who seek the freedom to shop whenever they like.

The landlord of Hall & Associates has obtained a Supreme Court judgment that moves it one step closer towards evicting the law firm from its offices at the Emporium Building on Front Street.

The Bank of Butterfield has been caught up in a stock scandal that has hit some of Wall Street's best-known brokerage houses.One of the bank's clients - American Michael Morse - has been accused of ripping off brokers through a scam involving the technique of ‘short selling'.Butterfield was named as a defendant in a court action brought at Bermuda Supreme Court this week by giant US investment firm, Merrill Lynch.

A proposed $5 million deal to sell the plush St George's Club timeshare complex to its members has collapsed.The deal died when members failed to meet a June 20 deadline to put down a $250,000 deposit.

Key provisions of Bermuda's proposed new insurance laws.

Former Bermuda Insurance Institute director Ian Linnegan has gone into partnership with professional speaker Stuart Doyle to offer human resources and insurance-related courses to the workforces of Bermuda-based companies.Mr Linnegan has taken an ownership stake in Transitions International, which Mr Doyle has been running for the last decade.

Financial trader Wolfgang Flottl intends to keep a trading operation in Bermuda even after he returns to New York to live, one of his US lawyers, Ted Altman, said this week.

European investigators looking into the Bank of Credit & Commerce International scandal have turned their attentions to Bermuda.They are trying to locate the assets of Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has business interests on the island.

Financial trader Wolfgang Flottl is pulling out of Bermuda over the next 18 months and moving his trading operations to New York, we can reveal.His withdrawal will have a significant impact on the local economy and will put pressure on landlords to reduce high-end residential rents.

Shares in excess liability insurer ACE Ltd. fell by $2 per share on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday in unusually heavy trading after the firm announced it was setting aside another $200 million to meet breast-implant litigation claims.

British pharmaceuticals giant Glaxo, which has taken heavy losses in the bond markets in recent months, is closing down its Bermuda investment arm with the loss of ten jobs.The decision follows a sweeping reorganization of Glaxo's board of directors announced a week ago.

The Bank of Bermuda has accepted an invitation to act as a financial advisor to the development of the Bermuda Financial Centre on the site of the former Bermudiana Hotel in Hamilton.

Reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee, which is being sued for $4 million in Bermuda, moved its operations from Bermuda to Belgium in 1993 not long after failing to comply with a request to show proof of its capital, we have been told.And some insurance observers believe the company, which offered property, marine, aviation and mortgage guarantee coverage and claimed to have capital of $100 million, may have actually had very few funds available to meet claims during the year it operated in Bermuda.

The Trident Partnership LP, whose sponsors include property catastrophe reinsurer Mid Ocean, has received $660 million of capital commitments to invest in the global insurance and reinsurance industry.Although no announcement has been made on where the funds will be distributed, observers believe that some of it will come to Bermuda.

The private detective who suggested that Bermuda-based financial trader Wolfgang Flottl may be helping to launder drugs money has a reputation for telling "tall" stories, we have been told.Journalists, private detectives and lawyers in the United States who have had dealings with Israeli-born Juval Aviv said he should not be believed.

Bermuda-registered Corange Ltd, which owns German health care firm Boehringer Mannheim GmbH, said restructuring costs cut its 1993 profit to $105 million on sales of $3.217 billion, compared with a profit of $192.7 million on sales of $3.213 billion in 1992.

Bermuda-based trader Wolfgang Flottl obtained a court order this week banning 220,000 copies of an Austrian magazine from newsstands on the grounds that they contained an article allegedly libelling him. Austrian police carried out a door-to-door visit of Vienna's newsagents on Wednesday evening, confiscating all copies of the down-market tabloid News.

Oil magnate John Deuss has denied there is a rift between himself and US oil giant Chevron that is delaying the construction of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

The joint provisional liquidators of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance have brought their first legal action in Bermuda since they were appointed six months ago, filing an application to be appointed receivers of Bermuda London Underwriting Agency Ltd.

Bermudian investors who have for years been staring at a collective paper loss of several million dollars from their investment in a publicly-quoted US company had something to cheer about this week.They stand to get some of their investment back - or may even end up with a profit - following the announcement on Monday of a proposed deal between NYSE-listed Regal International and a Hong Kong/Chinese conglomerate.

A Canadian businessman who claims that alleged negligence on the part of Attorney General Walter Maddocks while he was a partner in Conyers, Dill & Pearman cost him CDN$528,000 has had his damages lawsuit against CD&P dismissed because he took too long to bring it.

Bermuda Supreme Court will today deliver a judgment that has pitted father against son and is expected to be something of a test case for personal trusts in Bermuda and, possibly, internationally.The decision by Justice Vincent Meerabux will also have significant implications for the future of one of the world's leading manufacturers of pharmaceutical and health care products, Bermuda-based Corange Ltd.

Reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee is being sued for almost $4 million in Bermuda, where it operated for only about a year before moving to Belgium last October.A lawsuit has been filed against the company by Bermuda-based Raydon Underwriting Management Company, which operated from the same building in Hamilton.

It's either the best buy on the Bermuda Stock Exchange - or the worst. What is it? The common stock of BF&M.

Businessman Thomas Coughlin, who is being investigated by Bermuda police following a complaint that he may have misappropriated funds from a local firm, has broken his public silence since allegations were made against him.But he has refused to shed any light on what has happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars that has allegedly gone missing from a local property development firm that he ran.Mr Coughlin, who has failed to return several calls left by us, last week gave an interview to his local newspaper in Connecticut, the Middletown Press.

Businessman Curt Engelhorn obtained an eleventh-hour court order this week to prevent Bermuda-based health care firm Corange from removing him as a director.

More US companies may turn towards Regulation S securities offerings as a way of raising money due to the recent plunge of American stock markets, according to investment manager John McNiff.Mr McNiff, who runs Bermuda-based Offshore Investment Fund Ltd (OIFL), said US firms would find it increasingly difficult to raise money through public offerings in the current climate of market uncertainty.

A drowned scuba diver's family has taken steps to stop dive instructor Michael Heslop from disposing of any funds he may receive from the sale of his business.Mr Heslop has recently been trying to sell his dive boat operation, Fantasea Diving.

The UK insurance daily newspaper Lloyd's List has reiterated its claim that the Department of Trade & Industry is concerned about the quality of Bermuda's reinsurance market - despite an angry letter from the Bermuda Ministry of Finance.

The trial of Bermuda company boss Tony Habib, which was originally due to have been held on March 21, has been postponed because of additional time required by US investigators to gather information locally.

The Department of Trade & Industry's warning to UK insurers about taking out reinsurance in Bermuda is a direct result of the collapse of Bermuda Fire & Marine, Lloyd's List newspaper has reported.

Members of two ill-fated Gooda Walker insurance syndicates have filed a lawsuit at Bermuda Supreme Court.

A trial date for Bermuda company boss Tony Habib, who is accused of a multi-million dollar fraud, has been set for March 21 in the Federal Court southern district of New York.

Mystery surrounds the firing of investment boss Angus C McKay from Bermuda Overseas Investment Company.

An application has been made to wind up Bermuda-based Windsor Investments, which is majority owned by beleaguered American businessmen Gilbert Beinhocker and Gregory Plunkett.Channel Islands-based Maydown Consultants, which filed the winding-up petition at Bermuda Supreme Court on Wednesday, claims the investment company owes it $375,000.

Bermuda-based investors fighting to regain $750,000 which was allegedly stripped from their firm by American Gilbert Beinhocker may get most of their money back.The receiver of their investment firm, EPA Inc, has ordered the return of $500,000 in Promissory Notes that were taken out of the firm by Dr Beinhocker.Dr Beinhocker, who ran EPA for its investors, gave two notes - worth a total of $207,692 - to law firms Hale & Dorr, of Boston, and Richards, Layton & Finger, of Delaware, as payment for legal bills.

Controversial businessman Graham Ferguson Lacey, whose failed ventures are reported to have cost investors more than $400 million, is relaxing his business ties with Bermuda.An application has been made to move the domicile of the publicly-quoted Van Diemen's Company Ltd. from Bermuda to Luxembourg.

Potential losses from breast implant litigation in the United States should not cause undue problems for Bermuda-based excess liability carriers ACE and XL, both companies said this week.

Potential losses from breast implant litigation in the United States should not cause undue problems for Bermuda-based excess liability carriers ACE and XL, both companies said this week.

US federal prosecutors investigating Bermuda company boss Tony Habib have taken steps to depose local accountant Ray Medeiros and lawyer Ken Robinson.

The likelihood of foreign exchange controls being lifted in their entirety in the Budget on February 14 is considered to be virtually non-existent by Bermuda's financial community. While a complete overhaul of Bermuda's financial regulations may have been the Government's intention as recently as a few months ago, the issue has been turned on its head by talk of independence, according to businessmen.

Bermuda-based oil magnate John Deuss, 51, has lived a life that is remarkable even among the rich and famous. Since his first car dealership went bust in the 1960s, he has outwitted the Soviets, broken an oil embargo in South Africa, had his home fire-bombed by anti-apartheid protesters and helped clinch the world's largest oil deal. In the process, this self-made Dutchman has made billions of dollars. DAVID MARCHANT takes a look at his extraordinary career and asks: 'John Deuss - Hero or Villain?'

Members of the plush 69-unit St. George's Club timeshare complex have signed a preliminary agreement to buy the business for approximately $5 million.A party from the Members Advisory Council will visit Bermuda later this month to inspect the Club's books and meet with Government, which owns the land.

The saying ‘there's one born every minute' has never been more appropriate than when applied to the plethora of investors who have lost their shirts gambling on companies that prospect for diamonds and gold in ‘them thar hills' of British Columbia, Canada. DAVID MARCHANT takes a look at an industry that has attracted substantial investment from Bermuda residents and scrutinizes the performance of the notorious Vancouver Stock Exchange, which helps firms raise money and which was described in Forbes magazine in 1989 as ‘The Scam Capital of the World'.

Bermuda police are investigating an allegation that hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone missing from a local property development company.The cash has allegedly disappeared from The Summit Development Ltd, which built ten homes in Cut Road, St. George's, during the late 1980s.

Ernst & Young, the provisional liquidators of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance, have been granted an extra three months by Bermuda Supreme Court to compile information about the company's financial health and are now expected to produce their findings on March 10.

To all intents and purposes, Bermuda does not have any meaningful foreign currency exchange controls as far as people's ordinary spending habits are concerned, although it is a different story for capital investment.

A police file on Arnold Todd and others allegedly involved in a multi-million dollar fraud ring will be sent to the Attorney-General's chambers early next month.But criminal charges are unlikely to be brought for several months, if they are brought at all, Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Superintendent Wayne Perinchief said last night.

Partner Reinsurance Company, the $1 billion property catastrophe reinsurer which opened for business last month, has firmly defended its controversial policy of offering capacity direct to reinsurance buyers.Unlike other markets on the island, Partner Re prefers not to conduct business through placing brokers — a philosophy which has not endeared it to the reinsurance intermediaries.

Partner Reinsurance Company, the $1 billion property catastrophe reinsurer which opened for business last month, has firmly defended its policy of offering capacity direct to reinsurance buyers.Partner Re president and chief executive officer Herbert Haag said this week that Swiss Re, one of Partner Re's founding shareholders and the supplier of essential underwriting services to the catastrophe company, had already established a "clear tradition" of writing direct.