Bermuda

We offer a “one stop” service for Bermuda-related arbitration work and we are in a unique position to offer clients access to our global network and highly specialist insurance teams in London, New York, and in every other Kennedys office throughout North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. We have particular experience of making applications to the Supreme Court of Bermuda for the Court's assistance and supervision of Bermuda arbitrations, including anti-suit injunctions, stays, interim relief, enforcement of awards and appointment of arbitrators.

The specialist insurance and reinsurance practice advises clients on all classes of business, including: general liability (particularly the “Bermuda Form”), professional liability, directors' and officers' liability, financial institutions, product liability, Industry Loss Warranties, Insurance Linked Securities, captive insurance programmes, property, life insurance and other classes of long-term business, environmental liability, construction, marine and cargo, personal accident, life insurance, workers compensation, and motor liability.

Our team has over twenty years’ experience working in the London Market and the Bermuda Market, as well as acting on offshore insurance-related disputes.

Our team also offers unique specialist expertise advising and acting on Offshore Professional Risks, involving professional negligence claims in offshore jurisdictions.

We advise and represent corporate clients on a wide range of commercial disputes, both in litigation and in arbitration, as well as on insolvency and restructuring matters, trusts disputes, and regulatory issues. Our Bermuda-based lawyers have appeared as Counsel in some of the largest and most complex pieces of commercial and trusts litigation before the Supreme Court of Bermuda in the past 10 years, as well as conducting appeals before the Court of Appeal for Bermuda and the Privy Council in London.

Members of our team are also frequently instructed in high-profile matters before the Bermuda Courts involving issues of public, administrative, regulatory, constitutional, and environmental law. Our lawyers have considerable experience of dispute resolution before a variety of statutory tribunals and regulatory bodies in Bermuda and internationally.

Our team has considerable experience advising clients on corporate transactions and commercial matters involving Bermuda, including:

• Commercial contracts
• Partnership agreements
• Shareholders' agreements
• Trust deeds
• Corporate governance
• Regulatory and compliance matters
• Public and private offers of securities
• Loan and credit facilities
• The giving and taking of security
• Corporate structuring and corporate legal opinions
• Schemes of Arrangement (solvent and insolvent)
• Statutory transfers of Long-Term Insurance Business
• Transfers of business by novation
• Amalgamations and Mergers
• Continuance and discontinuance of companies
• Corporate Acquisitions and disposals
• International insolvency and restructuring, including cross-border recognition and enforcement
• Loss Portfolio Transfers
• Longevity Swaps
• Financial reinsurance
• Secured reinsurance
• Insurance Linked Securities

We also provide advice, contract drafting and litigation support on all aspects of employment law.

This paper describes the process under Bermuda law by which an insurance company may transfer its corporate domicile to or from Bermuda.

Bermuda, as a British Overseas Territory, is a party to the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra-Judicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (the United Kingdom being the relevant contracting state on behalf of Bermuda, having ratified the Convention on Bermuda’s behalf).

By its terms, the Convention is mandatory and must be followed by foreign entities seeking to serve process in Bermuda.

The ISAC Act provides an alternative model for corporate structures, offering promoters of, and investors, in Bermuda entities an even greater choice in individualized corporate structuring. This paper looks into the benefits of incorporated status of an ISA over an SA, the benefits of an ISA compared with a company, registration of an ISAC and ISA, on-going requirements and more.
 

This paper provides an overview of the licensing requirements and process, the prudential and conduct standards that a Bermuda insurer carrying on special purpose business will need to meet and the on-going filing and other requirements that it will need to comply with. It is not, however, a substitute for legal advice.
 

Given the considerable overlap in the process of effecting an amalgamation or a merger, this memorandum addresses both procedures. The key difference between an amalgamation and a merger is that in an amalgamation two or more companies amalgamate and continue as one company, whereas in a merger two or more companies merge and their undertaking, property and liabilities vest in one of the companies as the surviving company.
 

For anyone considering registering a captive insurer in Bermuda, this paper provides an overview of the licensing requirements and process, the prudential and conduct standards that a captive insurer will need to meet and the on-going filing and other requirements that it will need to comply with. It is not, however, a substitute for legal advice.