US tax authorities may be thwarted in their attempts to obtain private Bermuda banking documents relating to an alleged tax evasion case due to a legal technicality.

Lawyers for Almon Glenn Braswell returned to Bermuda's Supreme Court on Friday in a bid to stop the Minister of Finance from ordering the documents to be handed over because they say the official requests issued by the US authorities were signed by the wrong person. Mr. Braswell, who was convicted of fraud in 1983 over a baldness treatment, was previously pardoned by former US President Bill Clinton.

However, he was arrested in January this year after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in California alleged he hid $22.2 million between 1994 and 1997 in a Bermuda-registered company he owned.

The US authorities have charged Braswell and his companies Gero Vita International Inc. and GB Data Systems Inc., with tax evasion to the tune of $13 million, filing false returns and conspiracy.

Pursuant to the USA Bermuda Tax Convention, the IRS have issued requests to Bermuda's finance ministry and Minister of Finance Eugene Cox has accepted the request and issued notices in Bermuda to have certain documents - understood to include accounts from Bank of Bermuda and Bank of Butterfield - to be handed over to the IRS.

On Friday, Jeffrey Elkinson, acting for Braswell, made submissions to the court that the request contained serious deficiencies and the Minister of Finance should not have issued a notice.

He said that Parliament had clearly set out who was authorised to sign such requests. According to the relevant statute, it should be the US Secretary of the Treasury or his "designate".

The official designate was Mr. John Lyons, the Assistant Commissioner of the IRS in Mexico City.

According to Mr. Elkinson, the notices were not signed by Mr. Lyons, but by Fred Dulas "for and on behalf of" John Lyons.

Mr. Elkinson argued that the signature issue was a serious defect and that the proper signature requirements had been clearly established in a former case before Justice Richard Ground.

But David Kessaram, for the Ministry of Finance, said there had been substantial compliance with the procedural requirements.

He said that Mr. Dulas was a senior official whose authority had been sufficiently designated to the Bermuda Government.

Mr. Kessaram said that even if this substantial compliance was not accepted by the court, the non compliance was capable of being waived by the Minister of Finance.

Finally, Mr. Kessaram argued to the effect that if his first two submissions were not accepted, it would be wrong to overturn the Minister of Finance's notice on a the basis of a procedural defect.

Referring to Lord Justice Woolf, he reminded the court that procedural requirements exist in order to further the course of justice and not to provide a convenient get out.

If Mr. Braswell wins this application, the Bermuda Government will not be able to assist the US authorities to obtain the relevant banking documents which are understood to be crucial to the IRS case.