Beleaguered Bermuda-based AlphaStar Insurance Group - formerly Stirling Cooke Brown - has moved one step closer to being de-listed from Nasdaq after it failed again to file its reports on time.

The company, which changed its name in October 2002 in a bid to improve its tarnished image, will now have to go before the stock exchange for a hearing.

So far it has failed to file its annual report and is now facing de-listing for not filing its first quarter report for 2003 on time.

The property casualty and reinsurance holding company, which has business in the UK and the US and has offices in Victoria Street in Hamilton, issued a statement yesterday that said on May 21, 2003, it received a notification from the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Department that the company has "failed to comply with the filing requirements for continued listing".

The rules require that Nasdaq issuers timely file their periodic reports in compliance with the reporting obligations under the federal securities laws and said that AlphaStar has not timely filed its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended March 31, 2003.

The company has also previously reported on April 22, 2003 that the Nasdaq had notified it that its securities were subject to delisting from The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. for failure to file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002. At that time, the company said it expected that it would be able to file the 2002 Form 10-K within the following 10 days, or by May 2, 2003 - but has failed to do so.

A statement from AlphaStar said: "The company was not able to file the 2002 Form 10-K within the stated period. The Form 10-K is in the final stages of review by the company's auditors. The company anticipates that its Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2003 will be filed shortly after the Form 10-K. The company continues to believe that neither the 10-K nor the 10-Q will reflect any restatement of prior results (except to reflect certain discontinued operations)."

The company's late 10-K and 10-Q filings will be considered at an oral hearing before a panel authorised by the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Last month the company announced it has won an appeal at the New York State Supreme Court where the verdict unanimously affirmed an earlier jury verdict dismissing all of the claims asserted against AlphaStar, its London subsidiary Stirling Cooke Brown Reinsurance Brokers and one of its former employees. The jury verdict initially had been handed down in December 2001 in an action brought by AXA Reassurance S.A. and New Hampshire Insurance Company.

In that action, the plaintiffs asserted claims of fraud and negligent misrepresentation in the placement of reinsurance contracts entered into in connection with certain "reinsurance-backed gap film financing".

The action was the first "film finance" case to go to trial among the more than 50 such cases now pending around the world involving, according to some observers, more than $1.5 billion in potential coverage.