It is amazing how an editorial comment I made in Friday (13) publication has sparked another two editorials on the subject. I made the point that, to me, Cayman Finance had missed the boat by turning down an invitation by David Marchant, owner of OffshoreAlert, to speak at the 2012 OffshoreAlert conference commencing at the end of April. I say turned down because David Marchant asserted that he had asked Mr. Richard Coles, chairman of Cayman Finance, back in July, 2011, to contribute ideas and suggestions for the event. I also pointed out the rudeness of Cayman Finance and their “utter disdain” by not even sending a polite “no”.

Mr. Coles, by way of their media representative, Ms Lynne Byles, of Tower Marketing, responded to my editorial saying, “they were never contacted in relation to participating in the 2012 conference.” Please see my editorial in yesterday’s  (17) iNews Cayman for the Cayman Finance rebuttal and
my comments.

The subject of this editorial concerns the second to last paragraph of yesterday’s Editorial, which reads:

“I am awaiting OffshoreAlert’s response and I have asked Ms Byles if she can confirm OffshoreAlert has never contacted them in any capacity regarding their conference and if they have, had they responded. I also asked if they would be sending anyone to the conference.”

I have not had any response from Mr. Coles either direct or from Ms Byles. It was to Ms Byles I addressed my questions, as she is obviously Mr. Coles’ spokesperson. I have received a number of emails with attachments from Mr. Marchant who also called me yesterday evening when we had a long discussion.

Mr. Marchant gave me his version of the background to his relationship with Cayman Finance, especially pertaining to their previous chairman, Anthony Travers. He also responded to the release we had received from Lynne Byles.

He agreed with me regarding the precise (and misleading) choice of words in their release and the  ‘gobbledygook’ (my words) and also repeated my comment (he incidentally had not seen yesterday’s editorial) that he had never asked Cayman Finance for any form of sponsorship. We both found quote, “If Offshore Alert were to contact us regarding sponsorship, the opportunity would be evaluated on its own merit and would be given serious consideration” very strange. It seemed to have been placed in as a “red herring” to turn the thrust of their release away from whether they had in fact been asked to participate in the OffshoreAlert conference.

Mr. Marchant supplied me with copies of emails he had sent to Cayman Finance in July 2011. The first was to Mr. Roy McTaggart, who was appointed Interim Chairman of Cayman Finance in February 2011. Mr. Marchant had thought he was still chairman and as soon as he found out he wasn’t, sent another email to the present chairman Mr. Coles. Mr. Marchant states, “There is no contact information for Coles on Cayman Finance’s web-site (http://www.caymanfinances.com/Mission/Vision/directors.html) so I asked a contact in Cayman to provide me with an email address for him, which they did ([email protected]) and I sent Coles an email on July 8, 2011 (see attachment). It WAS NOT returned as undeliverable, suggesting it was an active email address.”

The attachment reads:

“Dear Mr. Coles,

I am writing to you in [y]our capacity as the Chairman of Cayman Finance.

I’m in the process of putting together an agenda for the 10th OffshoreAlert Conference, which will take place at The RitzCarlton, South Beach in Miami Beach, Florida on April 29 to May 1, 2012.

There will be sessions aimed at three different groups of attendees: providers, buyers and investigators of offshore products and services.

I would welcome any agenda ideas and suggestions that you or your members might have.

By way of background, our conference typically attracts over 250 attendees from many different countries and is covered by the world’s major newspapers and news agencies, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg and PBS. We typically have more than 40 attendees from Cayman, including speakers from firms such as Appleby and Maples and Calder, both of which have also been sponsors.

Sincerely,

David Marchant

Publisher, OffshoreAlert”

A similar email was sent to Mr. McTaggart who still remained on Cayman Finance’s board.

I leave you to judge who is telling the truth.

Twenty five months ago, Cayman Finance posted a message “disassociating itself completely with [sic] OA and Mr. Marchant” on Cayman News Service’s website.

Mr. Coles comments, that they have never snubbed the Offshore Alert event because, “we were involved in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th annual conferences” was way back in the past under different chair persons and again had nothing to do with my editorial that sparked this debate.

Finally (today at least) in a release sent to us by OffshoreAlert, they announced Mr. Tim Ridley, former chairman of Cayman Islands Monetary Authority will be speaking at their conference about the role that OFCs play in the global economy. Bravo.