Despite advising investors how to shield money offshore from lawsuits, a money manager found out the hard way that Bermuda was not a safe haven from US tax authorities.

The Court of Appeal judges ruled in favour of Finance Minister Paula Cox yesterday and said she was correct in to give the Internal Revenue Service information on Terry Coxon's on-island financial affairs.

The US tax authorities are pursuing a $1.5 million liability against him and his company Passport Financial Incorporated, which has a bank account here.

They ruled that Ms Cox had jurisdiction to handle a request by the US tax authorities to seek information under the USA Bermuda Tax Convention Act. Mr. Coxon is a financial writer who claimed to have the off-shore answer to protecting wealth that would make "lawsuit predators weep".

And until recently Mr. Coxon wrote on various financial web-sites including the Free Market News Network where he told investors to "repackage your assets to make them difficult or virtually impossible for a future lawsuit to reach them".

And on his own now defunct Passport Financial web-site, he said: "Place your wealth beyond easy reach of anyone who might want to sue you. When you transfer your assets to the Trust, the Trust owns them, not you, thus you can't be forced to hand them over to the victor of a lawsuit."

The Appeal Court judges said the reasons for their decision would be released later in the week.