Axis Capital chief executive John Charman launched a legal challenge yesterday to stop his estranged wife Beverly from obtaining information about a family trust fund she claimed contained millions of Pounds, according to a Reuters report.

Axis is a Bermuda-based insurance and reinsurance company formed by Mr. Charman in late 2001. He previously was head of ACE Limited?s European operations, and is a veteran of the Lloyd?s of London market.

After a fall out with ACE, Mr. Charman formed Axis, a company he has built into a global insurer and reinsurer worth $4.3 billion, by market capitalisation.

Mr. Charman, 53, and his wife, 52, separated in November 2003 after 27 years together.

The UK Press Association said in a separate report on the court battle that Mr. Charman told his wife he would not be coming home because he was now a tax exile. At the time Mr. Charman, a former deputy chairman of the Lloyd?s, was number 264 on the Sunday Times Rich List estimated to be worth ?120 million ($208 million).

Since then the couple have clashed in courts in London and Bermuda over their divorce settlement, though until now all hearings have been held in private. The couple have two sons.

Details of the battle emerged on Friday as lawyers for Mr. Charman challenged an order from London?s High Court requesting information from Bermudian courts on his family trust, Dragon Holdings.

The assets in Dragon Holdings were moved from Jersey to Bermuda in 2002, which coincides, within months, of Mr. Charman moving to the Island.

In a hearing at the London Court of Appeal, his lawyers argued that Dragon was a ?dynastic? trust set up for future generations of the Charman family, and should not be taken into account for divorce calculations. However, Mrs. Charman says her husband has direct access to the trust funds, which she says amount to as much as ?64.6 million ($112 million), and is fighting to include this amount in any divorce settlement.

Mrs. Charman filed the action against her husband in the Bermuda Supreme Court cause book in early October.

She also contends Mr. Charman has an additional ?52.8 million ($91.52 million) of assets in his sole name.

Court Records showed she held ?5.4 million ($9 million) of assets in her sole name, on top of ?2.1 million held jointly by the couple.

Mrs Charman says these assets do not include a further ?25 million ($43 million) held in a trust for their sons.

Mr. Charman relocated to Bermuda when he set up Axis Capital four years ago. His wife remains at the family home in Kent.

The Press Association report said Mr. Charman offered his wife ?6 million ($10 million) and would leave her the family home, Dell House, in Sevenoaks, Kent, as a divorce settlement. The battle has turned heated since Mrs. Charman scorned the offer.

The couple?s financial standing appears to be a far cry from where it was when they married nearly three decades ago.

Mrs. Charman?s court evidence said that she met Mr. Charman in 1970 and the couple lived at her parents? home after their marriage in 1976. The hearing continues.