Michael Foot — the author of an independent review on Britain's offshore financial centres — reportedly gave Bermuda a strong vote of confidence in conversation with an international businessman, who has gone on to do business on the Island.

Susan Stirling, director of marketing for the Bermuda International Business Association (BIBA) made the claim in a press release about the Risk Minds 2009 Conference in Switzerland.

A delegation representing BIBA and the Island attended last week's conference, which ended on Friday.

"An outstanding example of the effectiveness of these overseas conferences was driven home in a conversation that I had with Robert Iommazzo of US and UK-based SebaSearch.com," Ms Stirling said.

"He told me that he had a meeting recently with Michael Foot and discussed his desire to do business with an offshore jurisdiction and sought his guidance in choosing an appropriate venue for risk management specialists.

"He said Mr. Foot responded that, in light of the recent results from his independent review of British offshore financial centres, he would only currently highly recommend Bermuda and, if he did choose Bermuda, Mr. Iommazzo should seek out and explore involvement with the Bermuda International Business Association.

"Mr. Iommazzo is now doing business with an Association member company and will be meeting the association's CEO in early January."

Mr. Iommazzo, co-founder Mr. Iommazzo, co-founderof the New York-based executive search firm, did not answer an e-mailed request for comment on Friday.

Mr. Foot, a former director of the Bank of England, was commissioned by the UK Treasury to review the fiscal, financial and regulatory situation in the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.

The report, which was published in late October, concluded that Bermuda had weaknesses in its efforts to tackle financial crime and noted the low level of prosecutions in this area.

But Mr. Foot praised the Island for its record on tax transparency and for doubling the staff employed at financial regulator the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

BIBA was a sponsor of the Risk Minds 2009 conference in Geneva, which focuses on financial risk management.

Along with Ms Stirling, Dave Shastri, president of Bermuda-based hedge fund of funds technology provider Comada Group, attended.

Mr. Shastri highlighted the benefits of Bermuda as a domicile in his presentation at the event, entitled "Op Risk for the Buy Side — Understanding the increased implications and nuances of operational risk to detect a risk analysis pattern to buy side allocations".

Mr. Shastri said: "This is a very serious event with serious debate and serious conversation among dedicated risk analysis specialists. For Bermuda to be front and centre at such a prestigious conference is indicative of the quality product that the Bermuda brand now represents." Ms Stirling said Bermuda's placing on the OECD white list and its election as vice-chair of the OECD Global Forum Steering Committee boosted its reputation among conference attendees.

She added: "While this was a somewhat different audience than we have met with in the past, they are very enthusiastic to meet and talk about many of Bermuda's key attributes. "There is considerable discussion on those jurisdictions that have 'disappeared' from the marketing circuit — particularly Dubai."