Ness Motley Loadholt Richardson & Poole

The organizer of the asset recovery section of OffshoreAlert's upcoming Symposium has won a $36 million judgment against a U.S. law firm.Interclaim Holdings Ltd. and Interclaim Recovery Ltd., which are based in Ireland and owned by a Bermuda holding company, secured the judgment in Chicago on July 3 following a trial that lasted two and a half weeks.

A United States law firm accused of lining its own pockets by cutting a deal with a telemarketing fraudster to the detriment of one of its clients - an asset recovery firm whose investors include Lines Overseas Management - has been ordered by a court to produce all of its financial statements and tax returns from 2000 to the present.The order to compel South Carolina-based Ness Motley Loadholt Richardson & Poole to produce the documents was issued by the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on March 14, 2003 upon application by plaintiffs Interclaim Holdings Ltd. and Interclaim Recovery Ltd., whose operations are based in Ireland and ultimately owned by a Bermuda company.

A United States law firm accused of lining its own pockets by cutting an illegal deal with a telemarketing fraudster to the detriment of one of its clients - an asset recovery firm - has been ordered by a court to produce all of its financial statements and tax returns from 2000 to the present; Three men who were accused of kidnapping an offshore investment fraudster in Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 2001 have pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of common assault; David Ballantyne, who became one of the most despised people in the Cayman Islands, finally agreed to resign as Attorney General, effective March 15, 2003, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Euro Bank money laundering trial; A letter to the editor that was published in the Caymanian Compass on February 26, 2003 spoke volumes for the level of animosity among locals towards the people widely believed to be primarily responsible for the Euro Bank fiasco, which is likely to cost Cayman's taxpayers many millions of dollars in legal fees, costs and damages; Bermuda company director Paul Lemmon has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States; A dispute involving two offshore entities and two Canadian firms has arisen over the rights to the domain name 'poker.com'; Thirteen days after OffshoreAlert's article last month about a lawsuit filed at federal court in Miami by Florida-registered Growth Fund Partnership Inc. against Nevis-registered Condor Insurance Ltd., both of whose operations raise red flags, the action was dismissed with prejudice; Three firms have been ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars of restitution for their part in a massive investment fraud; Florida-based crook Rommy Kriplani, who specializes in ripping off residents of Third World countries by taking their money on the promise of jobs in the United States that never materialize, is at it again, once more in partnership with his favorite law firm of Spiegel & Utrera, of Coral Gables, Florida; and James Michael Dwyer, who until last year owned the White Sands Hotel in Bermuda, was criminally indicted for bank fraud on March 4, 2003 in his native New Jersey.

One arm of an asset recovery group that is registered in Bermuda and Ireland has gone into liquidation as a defensive measure in a bitter legal battle in North America for control of the assets of a convicted criminal. Interclaim Recovery Ltd., of Ireland, applied for voluntary liquidation on November 7, 2001 after a Canadian judge ordered it to pay CDN$2.2 million (US$1.37 million) in legal costs to the crook, Blair Down, and his associates.

International asset recovery firm Interclaim is suing its former law firm for allegedly cutting it out of a settlement deal with a crook who made tens of millions of dollars by ripping off the elderly. Interclaim Holdings Ltd. and Interclaim Recovery Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Ness Motley Loadholt Richardson & Poole at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 4, 2000.