Offshore financial centres are being made scapegoats for the global financial crisis, Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards said yesterday.

Leaders of the world's major economies meet at the G20 summit in London today, having already promised some kind of action to clamp down on "tax havens".

Although Mr. Richards believes the heightened anti-tax haven rhetoric heard in recent weeks — particularly from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown — is largely a product of domestic political pressure, he says Bermuda has real cause for concern.

The drawing up of a "blacklist" of tax havens has been mooted and even the possibility of sanctions against financial centres deemed to be uncooperative.

"They could do a lot to harm us, if they really decide to do something," Mr. Richards said. "They could hurt our reputation — which all political parties and the private sector have worked hard to build over the years."

The attempts of certain world leaders to apportion some of the blame for the global crisis with offshore centres was unfair, Mr. Richards said.

"When you look at the scheme of things, with the global economic situation, it's not the so-called tax havens that have caused these things to happen," he said. "It's political expediency on behalf of governments.

"They can complain about how opaque some of these countries are, but the money sitting in Swiss banks has not caused this crisis. Offshore financial centres are being used as scapegoats."

Governments including the US and the UK had poured billions of dollars of public money into their flagging economies and were now desperate for cash, Mr. Richards said, and had turned their attention to tax havens in their search for extra revenue.

The United Bermuda Party MP said he found it very difficult to believe claims surfacing from the Finance Ministry that Bermuda will have a seat, or friends, at the table today.

"Technically, Bermuda is represented at this conference by the British Prime Minister and I'm sure the Bermuda Government is not referring to him," Mr. Richards said.

"I would like to know who these friends are. All of these leaders will be putting their own country first."

Mr. Richards said he approved of moves made by Finance Minister Paula Cox, moves that include signing tax information exchange agreements (TEIAs) with more countries. But he felt more needed to be done.

Differentiating Bermuda from other jurisdictions was important, as was working harder to ensure closer links with US lawmakers.

Ms Cox told The Royal Gazette on Tuesday that she believed Bermuda was "well positioned" for the summit, as the Island had a track record of striving to comply with international standards of regulation and transparency.

Meanwhile, an economic adviser to the US Government gave hints as to what can be expected to come out of the summit. Mike Froman, Obama's deputy national security adviser for economic affairs, told reporters in London that the US wanted to get agreement on incentives for offshore tax havens to adopt global accounting and transparency rules.

"There are ways of encouraging countries to adopt these standards," Mr. Froman said. "The G20 is looking at a number of different approaches.

"The stakes for this summit are very high. They are magnified by the fact that much has happened since the last G20 summit in November."