revive his career. And he claims he has corporate support to return to insurance, reports David Fox .

A former Bermuda insurance executive has applied to the Bermuda Supreme Court to set aside a near $20-million default judgment against him surrounding the failure of his Focus Insurance group of companies.

Mark Hardy is in Bermuda this week to make an application before the court. He has repeatedly said he was not to blame for the failure of the Focus group of companies, or for alleged accounting irregularities.

But he also yesterday disclosed corporate backing to get back into the insurance business, through an unincorporated entity under the trading name, AspectRe.

A mareva injunction against Mr. Hardy here in Bermuda was discharged in February and his UK bankruptcy was discharged in July.

He wants to have a 1993 Bermuda Supreme Court judgment in default against him removed. He would still be required to apply in London for the registered judgment in the UK High Courts to also be set aside.

The Bermuda action, he believes, is central to moves to get his business life back on track.

But he has also been discussing with a group of specialists the establishment of schemes and arrangements that would assist the owners of Bermuda captive insurers in realising the embedded value of their share holdings in the captives, without jeopardising current or future fiscal and insurance programme profiles.

He explained, "Owners of captives should periodically look to cleanse their entire portfolios of losses. They should also be looking to realise the embedded value. They are always reviewing their reinsurance protections.

"The market has moved on considerably, but the present system of portfolio transfers from captives out to the conventional market, does not actually solve the problem. It doesn't then upstream the cash to the parent company.

"The difference that our consortium brings to the table is that we have the ability to come in and buy the companies for cash -- lock, stock and barrel.

"The only way the parent can realise the embedded value is to sell the captive. It can always set up a new captive, but at least it has cleansed itself of the past.

"The concept for us would be to buy the captives, break them up, securitise the component parts and get conventional reinsurers to take off the contingent insurance risk.

"The rest of it would be broken up through the investment banking medium with derivatives, and just laid off.

"The problem otherwise, is that it is impossible in this jurisdiction, to sensibly liquidate a company. The present company law effectively shows that you can't go into members voluntary liquidation, unless you actually got rid of your insurance business before you did.

"Present company law makes it a criminal offence to put a company into members voluntary liquidation, unless you know that you are going to pay out everybody within 12 months.'' This week, Mr. Hardy is unveiling the new venture to the Bermuda insurance market, especially to firms whose captives have long tail liabilities.

A big selling point, he said, was that the services could effect a solution at half the price of the big accounting firms, and could be put together relatively quickly.

He is telling insurance managers by letter: "We have secured the backing of a major financial institution which will provide funding for US$1 billion plus acquisitions for outright cash, and secondly the claims handling capacity of a major US insurer's 1,000-plus specialist run-off staff at a price less than half that charged by the "Big Five'' accountancy firms, who have already geared up their staff numbers in anticipation of the next wave of insurer insolvencies.

"In today's uncertain corporate climate, all proprietors should at least be considering the options and opportunities for the realisation of historic accounting and/or true economic gains, or at the very least stabilising present loss reserves.

"Aspect Re provides tailor made, risk free solutions, that may enable many millions of dollars/pounds/deutschmark to be taken to the credit of shareholder funds in the current year without disturbing present insurance protections.

"We have also pre-arranged the capacity to lay-off third party exposures, with or without reinsurance protections and cut throughs.

"Whilst the programme is not in the business of provocatively redomiciling obviously insolvent insurers merely to accelerate the IBNR collection position, we can provide practical and protected innovative solutions to situations where regulatory compliance is becoming, or indeed has already become, an issue wherever the insurer is domiciled.'' COURT APPLICATION -- Mark Hardy BUSINESS BUC