Liquidations & Insolvencies

Originating Summons in First Cayman Bank Ltd. (in Liquidation) v. Al Jabor Group at the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

A former high-flying Wall Street options trader who fell on hard times has been given a difficult choice by a Miami bankruptcy judge: either hand over the estimated $7 million that he placed in an offshore trust to avoid paying his debts or never have his $20 million bankruptcy discharged. This novel approach to combating debtors who hide their money offshore rather to avoid paying their debts was adopted by Judge Thomas A. Utschig.

A dispute between Belvedere Insurance and GTE Reinsurance Company, which are both based on the island, turned ugly this month when the latter applied to Bermuda Supreme Court to have the former wound up. The irony of GTE Re's application is that the company is believed to be a net debtor of Belvedere's, rather than a net creditor.

A Hong Kong judge has hit out at the provisional liquidators of the Bermuda-registered Peregrine Group after they and their legal advisers charged fees of $76 million for just 63 days of work. Doreen Le Pichon, Judge of the Court of First Instance High Court, said she was "greatly troubled by the amount involved" and refused to accept the charges of accounting firm Price Waterhouse and its legal advisers unless they could prove the work was reasonable and necessary.

Defendants in a fraud lawsuit involving Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company made an offer last year of between $10 million and $15 million to settle the case, OffshoreAlert can reveal. However, Bermuda Fire's liquidators, Ernst & Young, rejected the offer on the grounds that it fell substantially short of what was acceptable, said a source whose company is owed money by Bermuda Fire.

The bankruptcy of former Bermuda-based businessman Mark Hardy has been annulled in London, OffshoreAlert can reveal. Creditors of seven failed Hardy companies, including Forum, Focus and Aneco, which were all based in Bermuda, agreed to the annulment three months ago in return for Hardy signing over various assets and debt recovery rights relating to his failed business empire.

Investors Security Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

Kemper Reinsurance and the Bermuda-based joint liquidators of Electric Mutual Liability Insurance Company have announced a settlement of their long and acrimonious dispute over EMLICO's insolvency.

After a hearing that lasted half a day, the Bahamas Supreme Court officially placed Gulf Union Bank (Bahamas) into liquidation on March 26 but deferred a decision on whether to appoint the current provisional liquidators as permanent liquidators. The court first ruled on two preliminary legal issues regarding the competence and appropriateness of the National Insurance Board, which is a government agency, in being allowed to petition for the winding-up of the bank.

The liquidator of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International has won a High Court judgment in London for £17 million ($28 million) against former employees and relatives of a loans officer at the bank, which was closed in 1991. Two million pounds of the total, representing the value of four residential properties and a unit on an industrial estate in London, will be available immediately to the liquidator, Deloitte & Touche, reported the Financial Times newspaper.

Queensborough Investments Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

The clearest indication yet that the UK government will force its Overseas Territories to co-operate with foreign regulators investigating both fiscal and regulatory offences was given this week to Offshore Alert.Offshore centres like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Turks & Caicos Islands and the British Virgin Islands are being told by the UK government to introduce within two years legislation that will be virtually identical to the UK Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990.

The complicated legal battle over whether General Electric-subsidiary Electric Mutual Liability Insurance Company Limited should be liquidated in Massachusetts or Bermuda is scheduled to be heard by the Privy Council in London - the highest court in Bermuda's judicial system - next month.In an added twist to a drama whose circumstances change on a regular basis, Kemper Re brought, on February 20, its second lawsuit at Bermuda Supreme Court challenging the decision to allow EMLICO to redomicile to Bermuda.

The liquidator of Cayman-based Guardian Bank & Trust (in liquidation) has lost a petition he filed against the US government for the return of a computer tape containing details of accounts held at the bank.John Mathewson, the former chairman of the bank, handed over the tape to the FBI in June, 1996, as part of a plea bargain agreement after he was charged with money laundering offences in New Jersey.

Winding Up Petition in Governor in Council v. First Cayman Bank Ltd. at the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

Two loans - one of more than $5 million to the owner and another of about $10 million to Texas oil-man Tom Hajecate - form a major part of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority inquiry into the collapse of First Cayman Bank, Offshore Alert can reveal. These and further details about the bank's financial problems have emerged over the last few days - a period in which this newsletter has been threatened with legal action by government minister McKeeva Bush, who is a director of First Cayman, and warned by his lawyer that we faced criminal prosecution if we continued to pursue the story.

Four years after filing an apparently false bankruptcy in Switzerland, Swiss national Peter Kruger is again subject to bankruptcy proceedings - this time in his adopted home of the Cayman Islands.

The Bahamas Appeal Court has postponed a hearing into the appeal by Swiss businessman Werner Rey against his extradition to Switzerland. Proceedings had been scheduled to begin on May 26.Rey is appealing a Bahamas Supreme Court decision in April to extradite him to his homeland, where he is wanted on charges of fraud, forgery and bankruptcy offences in connection with the Omni group, which collapsed in 1991 with losses exceeding SwFr1 billion.

Swiss national Peter M. Kruger, who cost Credit Suisse, Swiss Bank and others millions of dollars, has been re-arrested in the Cayman Islands on an extradition warrant from Switzerland just six months after his original extradition arrest had been thrown out by the Cayman courts.

Swiss national Peter Kruger, who is wanted in Switzerland on charges of filing a false bankruptcy of US$270 million, has given up his long fight against extradition from the Cayman Islands and has said he will voluntarily return to his homeland in the "very near future".

Adrian Finance Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

Anglo American Investments Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

Admatec Corporation Inc. - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

Authority Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

Amhurst International Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission

Writ of Summons in Premium Sales Corporation, by Harley Tropin, as Receiver, v. Kenneth Thenen, Brenda Thenen, Scott Thenen, Daniel Morris, a.k.a. Daniel Rae; Samuel Schwartz, and Barclays Bank Plc at the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

Asset Management Limited - Enforcement Actions - Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission