The family of international business pioneer William Kempe have slammed bosses of law firm Appleby Spurling & Kempe for axing his name following a recent merger.

From April 1 the firm will be called Appleby Spurling Hunter after joining forces with Caymans firm Hunter & Hunter in a bid to become the leading offshore law firm.

However Mr. Kempe's family are angry because they first knew of the switch when they heard it on the news and, one month later, no one at the firm has bothered to write with an explanation.

In a letter sent to the firm's partners the family said: “It was with profound sadness and a degree of ignominy that the Kempe family learned the news that William R. Kempe's name was to be dropped from the Appleby Spurling & Kempe letterhead after 55 years.

“Mrs. William Kempe, her late husband having died only 15 months previously, had to learn of these actions on the seven o'clock news.

“No one had the courtesy to pick up the phone and call her or invite her into the office to forewarn her.

“This was an unfortunate oversight or perhaps the rush of acquisitiveness was too euphoric for anyone to consider the consequences. It is regrettable that such disrespect could ever be endemic of a Bermudian law firm. Some would argue that this exemplifies the new tide of globalisation and mergers: the selling of Bermuda, dollar for dollar, with no room for reverence or custom.

“It is lamentably ironic that the man who set the table for this merger to happen is the man forgotten. William R. Kempe - founding and managing partner, architect of the modern Bermuda, laboured hard and travelled the globe for 35 years and in so doing made an enormous contribution to the reputation and standing of both Bermuda and the firm as a whole which grew from three members of staff to 120 by the time of his retirement and sadly his reward is to have his name replaced, the good will of Hunter apparently more endearing than Kempe.

“Whilst we acknowledge the fact that the partnership has flourished since his retirement and that mergers are a fact of life in the global marketplace, the evident proclivity of the current partnership to rebuff tradition, courtesy and perhaps unwittingly, the efforts of William R. Kempe have greatly disappointed not only the Kempe family but a significant portion of cognoscenti Bermudians.

“As matters currently stand, the family is left with the distinct impression that legacy of William R. Kempe has been discarded along with a small but important piece of Bermuda history.”

Author and journalist Roger Crombie said: “Bill Kempe was a giant among the small group of founding fathers of Bermuda's international business industry. He and Dudley Spurling, who was later knighted, built AS&K from essentially a four-person operation in the late 1940s/early 1950s to a firm with more than 3,000 corporate clients by the early 1980s.

“Mr. Kempe was responsible for introducing the mutual fund business to Bermuda. Today, it is a very significant piece of the Bermuda mosaic.

“There was a time when Bill Kempe and the firm had every single Bermuda-based mutual fund as clients. He and David Graham of Conyers Dill & Pearman processed most of Bermuda's insurance and shipping business in the early years.

“With the name change at AS&K, the name of Kempe passes into history. The name of David Graham, the man who really introduced international business to Bermuda, is not reflected in the name of Conyers Dill & Pearman, the firm he worked for. Jack Tucker's name was never part of Bank of Bermuda.

“Neither Robert Newhouse nor Robert Clements, the architects of much of Bermuda's insurance industry, are immortalised by name in the firms they founded or helped found - ACE, XL Capital, SCUUL and others.”

Yesterday AS&K managing partner Peter Bubenzer, who will stay on as managing partner of the new firm, said: “Regrettably the decision to enter into a transaction of the nature we have entered into has to be taken in absolute confidence for a considerable period of time.”

He said the living partners had been been notified before the announcement of the name change and Mr. Kempe would have been told if he was still alive. Mr. Bubenzer said Mr. Kempe had made a considerable impact on international business and AS&K which survived to this day.

He said he believed Bermuda was following the world trend of law firms which were abandoning traditional names or shortening them considerably.