Former ACE Limited general counsel Peter Mear left the company last week, after a nine year-tenure as the company's chief legal officer.

His departure follows the announcement earlier in the year that Robert Cusumano, formerly of New York law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, was to replace him.

Debevoise & Plimpton was hired by the company last year to lead an internal investigation after ACE was drawn into a regulatory probe being led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, centred on New York-based insurance broker Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., and allegations of bid rigging, price fixing and controversial incentive payments.

The probe later broadened to scrutiny of an alternative form of insurance commonly called finite risk that regulators said could be misused to mask losses. ACE, in recent months, restated several years' results after internally investigating all finite risk transactions, to find that some transactions should be re-accounted for as loans, rather than reinsurance coverage. Mr. Mear, 61, was named ACE Chief Ethics Officer, on top of his general counsel responsibilities, last November putting him in charge of making sure the company's ethical code of conduct was upheld and corporate governance standards were met.

ACE Limited spokesman Robert Grieves said on Friday that Mr. Mear left Bermuda last week, for his Texas ranch, where he intends to set up a legal consulting practice.

During his time with the company, Mr. Mear saw ACE ? a Bermuda reinsurance and insurance company established in the 1980s to sell excess casualty policies to large corporations ? expand from a relatively small company to a global insurance and reinsurance company selling multiple types of insurance policies around the world.

Mr. Grieves said Mr. Mear's chief ethics position was an interim one, with the company having recruited Kevin Rampe as global ethics and compliance officer in May.