An application has been made in the United States to renew a $2 million default judgement against Bermuda hotelier and Shadow Minister of Tourism David Dodwell, according to an offshore newsletter.

Inside Bermuda reported that this is the latest salvo in a legal action that has being going on so long that a federal judge recently described it as "beyond old".

The judgement for $2,096,343 was entered in favour of Dodwell's one time business partner Lee Koehler at the US District Court for the District of Maryland on June 3, 1993.

Since then it has been quashed and reinstated and Koehler spent several years trying to seize Dodwell's purported assets held with the Bank of Bermuda Ltd. in New York, the article said.

Mr. Koehler stated in a court filing last year that he believed the assets held at the Bank of Bermuda "to be more than sufficient to satisfy the Dodwell judgement".

"The New York action has been fully briefed for almost five months, and it is currently awaiting decision by Senior District Judge Charles S. Haight," said Mr. Koehler in a filing of June 11, 2003, said the article.

He also is said to have stated: "The parties have recently broached the topic of settling this matter, and desire additional time to attempt to reach an agreement."

The newsletter, which is printed out of Miami, said that no agreement appears to have been reached since Mr. Koehler filed a notice to renew the judgement on February 9, 2004.

And the judge dealing with the case, Judge James Brear, reluctantly postponed the hearing to July 12-15 due to a family illness on the part of the defence attorney, said Inside Bermuda.

"No one need remind the parties that this case is beyond old and it is only with the very greatest reluctance that the Court must honour the request," said the judge.

The lawsuit in Maryland was first filed by Mr. Koehler against Mr. Dodwell, The Reefs Beach Club Ltd. of Bermuda, Windward Properties Ltd. of Nevis and Jenkins and Gibson Ltd. on October 21, 1992.

The dispute stemmed from budget over-runs that hotel resorts from Windward Properties incurred in renovating a resort it had acquired in Nevis, said the report.

It added that Mr. Koehler alleged that Mr. Dodwell not only caused the cost over-runs by failing to use his best efforts to complete the project within budget but also concealed the over-runs thereby preventing Mr. Koehler from restructuring the debt WPL incurred as a result of the project.

Inside Bermuda goes on to say that Mr. Koehler also advanced a claim for negligent misrepresentation, claiming that Mr. Dodwell, by falsely representing that he would pledge his stock in another corporation to the bank financing the renovations in order to securer WPL's financial situation, induced Mr. Koehler to pledge his own stock in that company.

But, it goes on to say that Bank of Bermuda obtained two default judgement s over Mr. Koehler at the Bermuda Supreme Court, one for $1.8 million on October 7, 1994 and another for $1.5 million on February 21, 1994.