February 2, 2009

A QUESTION and a few observations here:

How has Paula Cox been allowed to be an in-house legal counsellor to ACE Limited while at the same time she regulates this same company in her capacity as Minister of Finance?

Doesn't ACE Ltd. have an Ethics & Corporate Compliance officer on the payroll? If so, what does he or she do?

This is one of the largest insurance/reinsurance companies in the world and you'd think having risen to such lofty heights in its field (and made so much money) there would be someone at that company who understands that these days image really is everything when it comes to maintaining a good reputation in an off-shore financial services sector that is now under threat from both US and European authorities.

In this day and age, with Bermuda being increasingly scrutinised (and criticised) for its off-shore regulatory regime, even the appearance of a conflict of interests could have real - and catastrophic - consequences for our already shaky economy.

I don't know Ms Cox except by reputation (and it's a generally good reputation).

But surely the Caeser's Wife Rule should apply here: Julius Caesar divorced his wife when untoward stories circulated about her in Roman society - not because he necessarily believed them but because he thought his wife should be above even the merest hint of suspicion.

And in the present climate I think it would prove to be very difficult to convince a US Senate or Congressional hearing on, say, dirty doings in off-shore "tax-neutral" jurisdictions like Bermuda and the Turks & Caicos Islands that having the island's Finance Minister on the payroll of one of the very companies she's meant to be scrutinising did not represent a real or potential conflict.

Has common sense gone the way of the Mobylette on this island?

Is the word "logic" now only associated with the name of a telecommunications company in Bermuda?

I can't believe this question has not been raised in the past.

If it has, I am one of many who missed the answer which, in itself must be intriguing.

In the UK and Canada, the situation would never arise … and in the US probably just the thought alone carries the death penalty. At least in the political sense.

After all, the slimy Tom Daschle had to withdraw as President Obama's Health Secretary designate this week because he earned fists full of money for offering "private advice" to the medical insurance companies and HMOs he was going to supervise before he could take up a Cabinet position.

So any answers out there, Mr. Editor? Or are conflicts of interest now viewed as a completely acceptable part of the Bermudian scene?

That may be the case now given former Governors use public office to scrounge around for post-retirement directorships on exempt company boards and a host of our own politicians seem to think holding a Parliamentary seat is the same thing as hitting the jackpot in Vegas.

By the way, did you ever get a chance to see that obscene photo-collage in the Bermuda Sun of our esteemed MPs, Brown, Smith et al goofing around at their Washington ball which you and I paid for; celebrating a man who doesn't like Bermuda in the first place and who, if he has his way, will put us out of the off-shore business. Permanently.

The President must have been comparing notes about Bermuda with Tiger Woods!

And there are some days when I can't say as I blame him.

CURIOUS

Southampton