Colin OConnor

The liquidators of Belvedere Insurance have placed its holding company, Caliban Holdings Ltd., into provisional liquidation in a bid to recover up to $2.2 million that was dividended out of Belvedere in 1996.Although Malcolm Butterfield and Anthony McMahon are seeking to recover the full amount on behalf of Belvedere's creditors, they are particularly concerned about $663,000 of the dividend that was technically illegal under Bermuda law.

Belvedere Insurance Company Limited has gone into permanent liquidation after an arbitration hearing that could have saved the company turned into a fiasco. BICL had been pinning its hopes for survival on a favourable ruling on its claim for $9.6 million in underwriting and run-off fees against fellow Bermuda company GTE Reinsurance Company Limited. But the arbitration hearing on September 21, 1998 ended almost as soon as it began after panel chairman Sir Charles Staughton QC rejected BICL's choice of liquidator, Richard Grey.