Brian Lines

Hedge funds in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and USA have obtained a default judgment for $13 million against Canadian nationals John Hamilton and Sandro Sordi concerning allegations of securities fraud based around a Barbados-licensed insurer.

The British Columbia Securities Commission has issued cease trade orders against Bermuda-based brothers Brian and Scott Lines and, in a separate matter, Bahamas-based Gibraltar Global Securities Inc.

Reciprocal Order In the Matter of Brian N. Lines and Scott Lines at the British Columbia Securities Commission.

Hedge funds in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and USA whose investors were cheated in a securities fraud based around a sham Barbados-licensed insurer called Strategy Insurance claim to have lost out again in a settlement agreement with the alleged fraudsters.

Any lingering hope anyone had that details of the Bermuda Monetary Authority's investigation into Lines Overseas Management in 2004 2005 would ever become public knowledge faded when LOM settled a fraud complaint brought by the U. S. Securities and Exchange

In a final judgment that was approved by a federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday, Lines Overseas Management companies in Bermuda, Bahamas and Cayman Islands and the group's two controlling individuals during the relevant period agreed to pay $2.53 million

Securities and Exchange Commission's Trial Memorandum in a securities fraud lawsuit against Lines Overseas Management, Brian Lines and Scott Lines at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The fraud complaint brought by the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Bermuda based offshore financial services group Lines Overseas Management might be about to settle. On July 2, 2010, the federal court judge overseeing the action at the

Bermuda resident Eric Collins seemingly rues the day he agreed to serve as a director of Consensus Investments Ltd., which the SEC alleges was used to conceal insider trading in penny stock SHEP Technologies by Lines Overseas Management, Scott Lines,

A participant in an alleged securities fraud involving Bermuda based Lines Overseas Management described potential victims - who included LOM's own clients - as "poor lambs" and "sheep", claims the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The derogatory terms were

A jury trial in a fraud action by the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Bermuda based financial services group Lines Overseas Management could take place as early as next month in Manhattan.In a scheduling order issued on December

Former Lines Overseas Management president Brian Lines has lost an attempt to avoid giving the United States Securities and Exchange Commission a tape recording of a telephone conversation he had nearly seven years ago with SEC attorneys who were looking

A Jamaican fraudster who goes by the name of Emile Maximillion Saint Patrick Higgins and a few variations thereof, including "Sir Max Higgins", has brought a bizarre - and, no doubt, soon to be dismissed - lawsuit in which he

Forty-seven individuals and companies in Bermuda, Canada, and the United Kingdom are being asked to provide evidence for a securities fraud civil action brought by the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission against the Bermuda, Bahamas and Cayman operations of Lines Overseas Management, the group's President, Scott Lines, and its former President, Brian Lines.The witnesses include a stock analyst, newsletter writers, people who allegedly held shares in a nominee capacity for the Lines brothers, former employees of LOM, and officers and directors of two OTC BB-listed companies whose shares LOM allegedly manipulated, namely Sedona Software Solutions, Inc. and SHEP Technologies, Inc.

Following a long regulatory investigation that it went to extraordinary lengths to block through the courts, offshore financial services group Lines Overseas Management has been charged with securities fraud in a civil complaint that was filed yesterday by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The defendants include LOM companies in Bermuda, where the group is headquartered; the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, as well as LOM's President and CEO, Scott Lines, and his brother, Brian Lines, who resigned as LOM's president, effective July 1, 2005, as a result of the SEC investigation. The group's chairman, Brian and Scott's father Donald Lines, is not a defendant.

A marathon attempt by Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. and its Managing Director, Scott Lines, to block an SEC fraud investigation is entering a new phase of appeal in the United States.In a ‘Final Order' on February 21, 2007, U. S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts, sitting at the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, overruled the objections filed more than two years ago by LOM and Lines to U. S. Magistrate Alan Kay's order on January 7, 2005 that they comply with subpoenas requiring testimony and the production of documents for an investigation into alleged securities fraud involving shares issued by Sedona Software Solutions Inc. and SHEP Technologies Inc., both of Vancouver, Canada.However, in keeping with their practice of challenging every decision that goes against them, LOM and Lines filed a notice on March 27, 2007 that they are appealing the ‘Final Order' to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

A wannabe Bermuda insurer whose license application was turned down in 2004 has resurfaced in Barbados, where it has teamed up with a group whose principals include a convicted criminal. The Barbados Supervisor of Insurance issued an insurance license to River Reinsurance Limited on December 16, 2005. 

The former president of Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. appears to have won his battle to keep potentially incriminating telephone recordings out of the hands of the SEC in the United States.In a ruling on March 23, 2006, Bermuda Court of Appeal allowed Brian Lines' appeal against a decision by Bermuda Supreme Court that LOM must disclose “recordings, transcripts, summaries or excerpts” of telephone conversations made on Lines' extension while he worked for LOM. Justices Zacca, Nazareth, and Sir Murray Stuart-Smith also upheld the lower court's ruling that the SEC was not entitled to any “recordings, transcripts, summaries or excerpts of interviews undertaken” as part of an investigation into LOM by its local regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The court granted Lines an injunction restraining LOM and its subsidiary, LOM Securities (Bermuda) Ltd., from disclosing material regarding both of these matters to the SEC.

Lines Overseas Management Ltd. has been accused of misleading Bermuda Supreme Court in an attempt to obstruct a securities fraud investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC claims that LOM withheld information from the Bermuda court when the firm recently asked for a declaration whether it was allowed, under local law, to comply with administrative subpoenas that the Commission served on the investment firm's Managing Director, Scott Lines, in the United States in April, 2004.

Prominent offshore businessman Donald Lines has been branded a liar by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Lines, the 73-year-old Chairman and President of Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Limited, is adamant that he was not served with a securities-fraud related subpoena while he was in the U. S. in November, 2005 for emergency heart surgery. After the SEC first made the allegation in a filing at the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia in late December, LOM denied it in a court filing of its own and Donald Lines, a former CEO of the Bank of Bermuda, even went so far as to take out a full-page advertisement in the Bermuda Sun newspaper in which he claimed: “I have never been served a subpoena by the SEC”, adding that: “There has been no contact from the SEC to even notify me that they ever intended to serve any subpoenas or that they, however incorrectly, believed they had served me.”

Bermuda-based stockbroker Lines Overseas Management Limited has secured more time in its increasingly desperate battle to avoid co-operating with securities fraud investigations being conducted by the SEC. In an order on January 13, 2006, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit temporarily stayed a lower court's order that LOM and its Managing Director, Scott Lines, comply with four SEC administrative subpoenas by January 17. The ruling was in response to an emergency motion for a stay, pending an appeal, filed that same day by LOM and Lines.

A hearing is scheduled to take place at Bermuda Supreme Court on Friday to determine whether offshore stockbroker Lines Overseas Management Ltd. is allowed to release client records to the SEC in the United States. The expedited hearing was requested by the LOM group on January 9, 2006 in what appears to be a last-ditch attempt to avoid complying with SEC enforcement subpoenas that were served on it as long as 22 months ago concerning investigations into alleged securities fraud involving shares issued by Sedona Software Solutions Inc. and SHEP Technologies Inc., both of Vancouver, Canada, and HiEnergy Technologies Inc., of Irvine, California.

After months of failing to disclose it in SEC filings, a penny stock firm controlled by Bermudian brothers Brian and Scott Lines has given its first hint that an application on its behalf for a Bermuda insurance license has been

Brian Lines today became the first management casualty of the SEC's two ongoing securities fraud investigations into Bermuda-based Lines Overseas Management.LOM announced Lines had "retired" as "director, President and employee", effective July 1, 2005, even though he is just 42-years-old.

A New York-based attorney with a conviction for securities fraud is an insider in a penny stock firm controlled by the principals of Bermuda-based Lines Overseas Management, OffshoreAlert can reveal. The involvement of Edward Marvin Grushko casts further suspicion on River Capital Group Inc., which is raising money from the public by claiming it intends to operate as a Bermuda insurer without disclosing that two licensing applications were turned down by the Insurance Admissions Committee of the Bermuda Monetary Authority last year and that no further application has been made since then.

A penny stock firm controlled by the senior officers of Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management reported a net loss of $778,928 for the 12 months ended December 31, 2004, according to its recent 10K filing with the SEC, increasing its deficit to $1.08 million.However, River Capital Group Inc.'s share price soared during the year, hitting a high of $6.50 on the Pink Sheets market, despite the firm having no full-time employees, no revenue and, some would say, no future.

A newsletter writer has "fled" the United States to avoid being questioned by the SEC about alleged securities fraud by offshore investment firm Lines Overseas Management, it has been claimed.The allegation was among new details that were released by the SEC in a filing on March 31, 2005 at the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the Commission is seeking to enforce four subpoenas served on LOM and its Managing Director, Scott Lines, last year concerning two separate investigations into the trading of shares issued by Sedona Software Solutions Inc. and SHEP Technologies Inc., both of Vancouver, Canada, and HiEnergy Technologies Inc., of Irvine, California.

Three former senior officers of The Harris Organization, which defrauded clients out of tens of millions of dollars before collapsing in 2002, are back in business in Panama. Lawrence George Gandolfi, 65, a.k.a. Larry Gandolfi Christopher Glover Davy, 60, and

For the second time in 57 days, a British Columbia Securities Commission panel has ruled not to ban offshore investment firm Lines Overseas Management from the local market. In a decision on March 4, 2005, the panel determined that, although it was still concerned about LOM's activities, its staff had not met their burden of providing sufficient evidence to justify an order prohibiting LOM, affiliated firms and its senior officers from trading on behalf of undisclosed beneficial owners. However, the panel left open a window of opportunity for its staff by concluding that: "If the Executive Director wishes to pursue the matter, the necessary evidence should be gathered and a notice of hearing issued."

Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management and its Managing Director, Scott Lines, have applied for a stay - pending an appeal - of a court order requiring them to turn over information to the SEC for use in two investigations into alleged securities fraud. In a joint motion to the U. S. District Court for the District of Maryland, LOM and Lines, claim that, until a final order is rendered, they "cannot lawfully be required to comply" with four SEC subpoenas and, therefore, the effect of a January 7, 2005 ruling by Magistrate Judge Alan Kay ordering them to comply should be stayed until it becomes final.

The British Columbia Securities Commission yesterday dismissed an application for cease trade orders and other sanctions against offshore investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. and its senior officers. However, it was a hollow victory for the respondents since the Commission panel immediately ordered a new hearing to determine whether to ban LOM from the local market for different reasons.

Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management and its two most senior officers "have been at the epicenter of at least two suspected fraudulent schemes", according to the U. S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Furthermore, LOM and brothers Scott and Brian Lines have done "everything possible to keep the SEC from getting to the bottom of it", claimed SEC attorney Michael Lowman at a U. S. court hearing.

A United States court has reserved judgment on whether an offshore investment firm and its boss must comply with four subpoenas served on them by the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay did not issue a ruling from the bench at the end of a two-hour hearing on December 10, 2004 at the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as the SEC had hoped.

An investigation into suspected stock manipulation has been stymied by the non-co-operation of offshore broker Lines Overseas Management, it has been claimed.The allegation was made at a hearing in November before the British Columbia Securities Commission to consider banning the following parties from the local market: LOM (Holdings) Limited, LOM Securities (Bahamas) Limited, LOM Securities (Bermuda) Limited, LOM Securities (Cayman) Limited, Lines Overseas Management Limited, and LOM officers Donald P. Lines, Chairman and a former CEO of the Bank of Bermuda; Brian N. Lines, President and a Director; Scott G. S. Lines, LOM's Managing Director; Malcolm Moseley, LOM's CFO, Executive Vice President, and a Director; David McNay, Vice President of Investment Operations; and J. Scott Hill, Compliance Manager, all of whom reside in Bermuda.

Swiss financier Dieter Behring, 49, was arrested in Switzerland on October 19, 2004 on suspicion of financial investment fraud and money laundering, according to news service Swissinfo; Paradigm Holdings Limited, which has been implicated in an alleged scam involving investments in wine, was placed into provisional liquidation at the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands on October 12, 2004; The sentencing of former offshore bank charter broker Jerome Schneider for conspiracy to commit fraud, which was scheduled to take place in late October, has been postponed to December 6, 2004 at the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California; As previously forecast by OffshoreAlert, a default judgment against Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Limited and RBC Dominion Securities Inc. has been thrown out at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama; and LOM's principals, Brian and Scott Lines, have been accused of violating Section 13D of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by failing to timely disclose their beneficial ownership of River Capital Group Inc.

Insiders and privileged clients of investment firm Lines Overseas Management stood to profit from the alleged manipulation of a penny stock by LOM principals Scott and Brian Lines, according to a court filing by the SEC.These included directors such as Graham Collis and Susan Wilson, senior employees like CFO Malcolm Moseley; relatives of the Lines brothers, including two minors, and the manager of a local restaurant, Constanzo Di Meglio.

The principals of investment firm Lines Overseas Management have been accused by the SEC of illegally failing to timely disclose their beneficial ownership of River Capital Group Inc., which claims to be trying to establish a Bermuda insurer headed by Robin Spencer-Arscott.

Investment group Lines Overseas Management, which claims to have nearly $1 billion of assets under administration, is refusing to provide information about allegedly illegal trading activities to its own auditor, as well as the Bermuda Monetary Authority and the SEC

Two weeks after our story on River Capital Group Inc. last month, the firm notified the SEC that Richard King "the Chairman of the Board of Directors, resigned from all of his positions with the registrant". No reason for King's decision was given in the filing, which was signed by RCGI's "President", Howard Taylor. An odd aspect of the September 21, 2004 filing was its description of King as the chairman, while the firm's previous SEC filing on August 23, 2004, stated that this position was held by Taylor, who was also President and CEO.

For the second time in seven years, a proposed reinsurer headed by former AON (Bermuda) boss Robin Spencer-Arscott has been turned down for an insurance license.The failed application to the Bermuda Monetary Authority was on behalf of River Reinsurance Ltd., which is owned by Bermuda-based River Capital Ltd.

Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. and its Managing Director, Scott Lines, have been ordered to appear before a United States court as part of a securities fraud investigation.The U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order on August 17, 2004 that they must attend a hearing that is scheduled to start at 9.45 a.m. on October 4.

Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. has denied allegations of securities fraud made against it by the SEC but is still refusing to co-operate with the regulator's investigations. LOM has reiterated its stance that its affairs are governed by the laws of Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, where it has offices, and not the USA and Canada, where it makes much of its revenue.

Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. and its principal officers, Scott and Brian Lines, are being investigated for alleged securities fraud in the United States. It has been alleged that the Lines brothers and LOM customers profited by more than $6.4 million from fraud and market manipulation and that the firm caused false statements to be filed with the SEC and altered its internal records to impede an investigation.

A racketeering lawsuit filed against Bermuda-based investment group Lines Overseas Management has been withdrawn by the plaintiff six months after it was filed. The case against defendants LOM Securities (Bermuda) Ltd., LOM (Holdings) Ltd. and the group's president, Brian Lines, was dismissed at Nevada federal court on November 14, 2003.

Subpoenas have been sent out to several former officers of the First International Bank of Grenada, including Rita Regale, Robert Skirving and Van Brink, to appear for examination in Grenada as part of the liquidation process being carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers; Yet another Grenada offshore bank has gone out of business amid allegations of fraud against its clients; The Bank of Bermuda has estimated that its remaining potential liability to outstanding litigation relating to the Cayman-based Cash 4 Titles Ponzi scheme, excluding the $67.5 million settlement of a class action lawsuit in the United States, is no greater than $20 million; A civil complaint alleging 'dumpster diving' against international debt recovery firm Interclaim that was reported in last month's edition of OffshoreAlert has been dropped; The incredibly slow - yet inevitable - collapse of The Harris Organization financial services group of Panama appears to be closer than ever; and Bermuda-based stockbroker Carol Green has been ordered by a local court to repay $143,536 of debt run up with her former employer Lines Overseas Management.

Shares of the parent company of Bermuda-based stockbroker Lines Overseas Management were listed for the first time on the Bermuda Stock Exchange on July 24.A statement that the shares had been approved for listing was made on July 20 without any prior public announcement that an application had been submitted.

Information Memorandum for LOM (Holdings) Limited, filed with the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

As I flew out of Bermuda on June 10 after narrowly surviving an attempt by Donald Lines' attorney, Robin Potts, to have me put in prison for contempt of court for refusing to reveal my sources in relation to articles I wrote about Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance, who should I bump into on the flight to Atlanta but one of Donald's sons, Brian Lines, who is the President of Lines Overseas Management, which has been on the receiving end of several unflattering articles in this newsletter; Some of the UK's leading attorneys have made Bermuda their home for the next several months as they work on two of the biggest civil trials in the island's history: The Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company case and a trust dispute involving the Thyssen-Bornemisza family, which has a $2.7 billion fortune; What was it like sitting in front of Britain's finest while they debated for two days whether to lock me up for seven days for contempt of court? Not much fun, I can tell you; The lengths that crooks will go to in order to lend credibility to their scams knows no shame; and Beleaguered Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings Ltd. is laying off staff in Bermuda and is in the process of moving its Bermuda-based broking activities to London, we have been told.

The saying 'There's one born every minute' was never more evident than during a recent interview OffshoreAlert conducted with an Arizona-based creditor of Gilbert Ziegler, the chairman of the fraudulently-run First International Bank of Grenada; The depths to which The Oxford Club's parent, Baltimore-based Agora Inc., will stoop to attract new business seemingly knows no bounds; In the book the Sovereign Individual, which is co-authored by Lines Overseas Management shareholders Lord William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson, there is a paragraph on Page 188 that seems to advocate an illegal act when advising readers on asset protection; Although we published a list of shareholders for Bermuda-based financial services firm Lines Overseas Management last month, the identities of many of the beneficial shareholders was hidden through companies; We reported last month on an alleged fraud being committed by Threshold Insurance Services, which is an apparently bogus insurer being operated by The Harris Organization of Panama and being investigated by banking and insurance regulators in Florida. We learned this month that official records in Panama show that the company has now been dissolved; and Accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, which is liquidating First Cayman Bank, is still forecasting a pay out of 45 to 55 cents on the dollar.

Links between Lines Overseas Management and the Agora Group.