Shadow Attorney General Trevor Moniz said he was amazed that Bermuda?s big two law firms said they would have no problem with competition from international attorneys.

Mr. Moniz said Appleby Spurling and Kempe and Conyers Dill and Pearman had a monopoly on corporate law transactions and would be ?crushed like a walnut? if big international companies were allowed to challenge them.

He spoke out after AS&K announced earlier this month it is merging with a company in the Cayman Islands.

Non-Bermudians are not allowed to become partners in Bermudian law firms, but it is understood AS&K?s arrangement with Hunter and Hunter does not involve non-Bermudian partners and there is an international entity managing the expanded company.

AS&K and CD&P between them enjoy a cosy monopoly controlling more than 90 percent of corporate business in Bermuda, Mr. Moniz claimed.

After the merger was announced, AS&K managing partner Peter Bubenzer said he would welcome foreign legal competition in Bermuda, and John Collis, the head of CD&P?s corporate department, said he was not concerned about the prospect.

But Mr. Moniz, who was president of the Bar Council until last year, said both firms had opposed opening up as recently as last year and their latest statements were totally incredible.

?Peter Bubenzer said he is not concerned if a big London firm opened a Bermuda office, and I would suggest that nothing could be further from the truth,? Mr. Moniz said.

?They (AS&K and CD&P) would certainly not welcome competition because they have a monopolistic control of the Bermuda legal services market, accounting for over 90 percent of the corporate market.

?Quite frankly, it is not credible for them to say they want international competition. That would crack them like a walnut.

?They are big frogs in a small pond that do extremely well financially and that would be broken if these big international firms came in.

?I do know that both firms are monopolistic, and for either of these two monopolistic firms to say they would like to see their monopolistic position in the legal market challenged by huge global law firms seems unlikely.

?Whether this closed shop should be open is a matter for public policy, and whether small firms such as my own should be able to open partnerships with international firms, that is something that needs to be explored.

?It is certainly a very large departure when they are saying they would welcome them in. I find it difficult to believe there has been such a change because when I was president of the Bar ? less than nine months ago ? that was not their position.

?The report in the papers raised two serious issues. The first is whether or not AS&K got an immigration exemption from the legal requirements that all partners in a Bermudian partnership must be Bermudian. It appears that this is not the case.

?What Mr. Bubenzer appears to be saying is that the Bermudian partnership is a stand-alone and all the partners there are Bermudian and there is some sort of international management structure. The details of that are somewhat sketchy and vague.

?As immediate past president of the Bar Council, the issue had been raised about whether local law firms could have non-Bermudian partners if that did not breach the 40 percent mark, as in the 60-40 rules, and that had always been denied, except in very few anomalous cases.?

Ross Webber, the marketing manager CD&P, said yesterday: ?I can?t comment on comments from AS&K, and I cannot comment on what Mr. Moniz has said, but we have no documentation that Mr. Collis has ever stated vehemently any opposition to foreign firms coming through.?

Mr. Bubenzer did not return a call yesterday seeking comment.

Bar Council president David Kessaram said the Bar Council did not have a position on the issue, although it did vote in favour of opening up to foreign firms in the 1990s, but Government rejected this.

?The feedback we have been getting, and it is not a groundswell, is to find out what the Bar Council?s position is on it, and we haven?t considered it formally since becoming aware of the AS&K position,? he said.

?We don?t have a formal position as yet, but I would expect the Council will want to consider it and decide whether it is for it or against it.?