Donald Lines

Accounts at banks in Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands have been frozen as part of an investigation into an alleged $75 million fraud that involves funds in the BVI and Nevis and an investment adviser in the Cayman Islands.

Bermuda-based businessman Donald Lines has been awarded damages of $3 million against a Massachusetts process serving company that falsely claimed to have served him with three securities fraud-related subpoenas on behalf of the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission. At the Superior Court of Massachusetts on June 6, 2008, Judge Robert Cosgrove entered final judgment in favor of Lines and against Boston-based Stokes & Levin, Inc. on one count each of Unfair Or Deceptive Acts Or Practices, Negligence), Fraud, Intentional Or Negligent Infliction Of Emotional Distress, and Interference With Advantageous Business Relations.

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 investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. has denied that it destroyed evidence that is being sought by the SEC for a securities fraud investigation in the United States. LOM has also refuted a claim that the SEC served three administrative subpoenas on LOM's Chairman and President, 73-year-old Donald Lines, on November 10, 2005 while he was in the United States, apparently for an emergency heart operation.

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.

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."

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.

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.

A company formed by British investment fraudsters Lincoln Fraser and Jared Brook to disrupt the administration liquidation of their failed Imperial Consolidated Group, including perpetrating an asset recovery fraud against Imperial's investors, is about to go the way of most,

The liquidators of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company have disclosed that they received $50 million as settlement of one of the most high profile lawsuits in the island's history.However, $24 million of that went to cover fees and costs

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.

One of Bermuda's longest-running farces came to an end this month when the Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company trial ended with an out-of-court settlement. Seven months into the trial, the corporate and individual defendants threw in the towel and appear to have given the liquidators of BFMIC virtually everything they were seeking.

The Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance trial began, as scheduled, on May 4 and most of the rest of the month was spent hearing allegations of lies, deceit and fraud against people who were at one time considered to be among the crème de la crème of the local business community.

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.

Some of the UK's top attorneys began arriving in Bermuda this month to prepare for the island's biggest ever civil trial, involving the alleged asset-stripping of the failed Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company by some of the island's most prominent businessmen and companies. The trial, which is due to start on May 4, is expected to last four months and there have been no indications in the run-up to the off that the case will be settled.

What is probably the most eagerly-awaited civil trial in Bermuda's history - involving the alleged $50 million asset-stripping of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company while it was known to be insolvent - is scheduled to start on May 4, 1999. The trial, in which some of the island's best-known businessmen and companies are defendants, is expected to last four months.

Bermuda-based oil magnate John Deuss, 55, has lived a life that is remarkable even among the rich and famous. Since his first car dealership business went bust, he has outwitted the Soviets, broken an oil embargo in South Africa, had his home firebombed by anti-apartheid protesters and helped clinch the world's largest oil deal. In the process, the Dutchman has made billions of dollars. Now it appears to many that he has ‘bought' the new PLP government in Bermuda. Deuss paid off the mortgage on the party's headquarters a few years ago, appointed PLP leader and new Bermuda Premier Jennifer Smith as a director of his Bermuda bank and is widely thought to have spent at least $2 million financing the PLP's entire election campaign that culminated in the party winning power for the first time earlier this month. A reliable source also told us that, several months ago, Deuss began paying Smith $150,000 per year that is categorized as a ‘clothing allowance'. DAVID MARCHANT takes a look at his career and asks: ‘John Deuss - Hero or Villain?'.

Links between Lines Overseas Management and the Agora Group.

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.

Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company, which was stripped of over $40 million of assets two years before it went bust without Bermuda's regulators so much as batting an eyelid, is now estimated by its liquidators to be insolvent by an astonishing $1.4 billion. If the figures are accurate, Bermuda Fire would become not only by far the biggest insolvency in Bermuda's history but also one of the biggest insurance insolvencies anywhere in the world.

A trial date has finally been set for what will be one of the most eagerly-awaited business-related civil trials in the history of Bermuda.Bermuda Supreme Court has provisionally set aside a date in the spring of 1998 to begin hearing allegations that some of the island's most influential businessmen stripped Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance of assets valued at over $40 million even though they allegedly knew the firm was insolvent.

The Things People Say.

The focus of the court action filed yesterday against BF&M Ltd. and other co-defendants will be the complex sale of Bermuda Fire & Marine's profitable domestic business in 1991. Bermuda Supreme court must decide whether the sale was done fairly and in the best interests of the firm's policyholders and shareholders, as Bermuda Fire's directors claim, or whether it was a way of avoiding expected claims by U.S. policyholders, as creditors claim.

A lawsuit has been filed against some of Bermuda's best-known companies and individuals by the liquidators of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company Ltd. Although no amount has been stated in the legal action filed at Bermuda Supreme Court on Thursday (Oct. 5), the liquidators said earlier this year that Bermuda Fire's debts could exceed $100 million.

A decision on whether to sue some of Bermuda's most influential local businessmen for millions of dollars, stemming from the collapse of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance, is expected to be made over the next couple of months. At stake is over $100 million owed to creditors of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance and the credibility of Bermuda's regulatory and legal system in relation to protecting the rights of foreigners doing business with Bermuda-based insurers and reinsurers.