US Senator John Kerry, who campaigned last year against ?Benedict Arnold? companies that moved offshore, has hired as a tax counsel a woman who lobbied against cracking down on such businesses.

The Boston Herald reported yesterday that Sen. Kerry recently hired Kathleen M. Kerrigan as his new social security and finance committee counsel.

She is a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Baker & Hostetler, where she is listed as a lobbyist on corporate and international tax issues for Bermuda-based consulting giant Accenture, which incorporated in Bermuda in 2001.

Accenture has always argued that it was a global business, never an American one, before it incorporated in Bermuda. Formerly Andersen Consulting, it was incorporated in Switzerland before establishing itself in Bermuda.

The Boston Herald said that before taking the lobbying job, Ms Kerrigan worked for Massachusetts Congressman Rep. Richard Neal, who authored a bill called the Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act eliminating the offshore tax break.

Then, on behalf of Accenture, Ms Kerrigan lobbied members of Congress against the bill her former boss had championed.

?Kathy Kerrigan didn?t like lobbying so she?s returning to Congress to help John Kerry stop the Republicans from privatising Social Security, fight to close the Bermuda corporate tax loophole, and work for tax fairness for average people,?? Kerry spokesman David Wade told the Boston Herald.