Marsh & McLennan

Litigation between the Marsh group and a former Managing Director of Marsh Global Broking (Bermuda) Ltd., Joseph LaRocco Jr., has been settled just four months after it was started.LaRocco's complaint was dismissed with prejudice and without costs at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 14, 2008. The terms of the settlement have not been publicly-disclosed.

Retail giant Sears, Roebuck and Co. and related companies have filed a complaint in Atlanta in which they are seeking hundreds of millions of damages against insurers in Bermuda and elsewhere concerning an alleged bid rigging scheme involving brokers Marsh

Eight Bermuda based companies are among the defendants in a recently civil lawsuit filed recently by clients of broker Marsh & McLennan who claim they were damaged in a bid rigging scam. One of the plaintiffs is also incorporated in Bermuda.

The share price of Bermuda-based ACE Ltd. has been unaffected by a lawsuit alleging that one of its subsidiaries paid a $50,000 bribe to broker Marsh & McLennan to secure an $80 million state contract. ACE's shares ended January at $43.40 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, virtually unchanged from the day before the complaint was filed at Connecticut Superior Court by the State of Connecticut on January 21, 2005. The price was 19 per cent higher than the day before the Marsh scandal began on October 14, 2004.

Insurance giant AIG has used offshore structures in Barbados and Bermuda to circumvent or violate U. S. state laws regarding reinsurance and to help at least one crooked client evade taxes.In the late 90s, four state insurance departments were aware

One of the most secretive commercial reinsurers in Bermuda has been sold after three years in business, about two-thirds of which it appears to have been up for sale. AFC Re, which was capitalized at $100 million when it formed in October, 1997, was bought for $17 million in cash by Everest Re (Bermuda) in a deal that was announced on December 22, 2000.

Bermuda's most successful insurance investment partnership, between Marsh & McLennan (now J&H Marsh & McLennan) and JP Morgan, may be coming to an acrimonious end.The two giants of the investment and insurance sectors, who were responsible for the formation of companies such as ACE, EXEL and Mid Ocean, have fallen out, apparently over Merrill Lynch being preferred to JP Morgan in lucrative insurance deals involving companies JP Morgan helped set up, we have been told.

Marsh & McLennan, the world's largest insurance broker, has raised eyebrows in Bermuda by setting up an offshore facility to circumvent laws in sixteen US states that discourage companies from buying insurance against punitive damages awards.The broker's actions have drawn attention to the controversial but increasingly popular practice of American insurance companies using offshore structures they ultimately own to write politically sensitive punitive damages coverage they are not allowed to provide in the US.