{"id":17667,"date":"2012-02-06T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T15:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=17667"},"modified":"2012-02-06T10:39:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T15:39:56","slug":"the-offshore-banking-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/02\/the-offshore-banking-nightmare","title":{"rendered":"The Offshore Banking Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_17669\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17669\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17669\" title=\"offshore-nightmare\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/offshore-nightmare.jpg\" alt=\"Offshore Nightmare\" width=\"150\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/offshore-nightmare.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/offshore-nightmare-111x150.jpg 111w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17669\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cover: Mick Coulas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It was a strategy born of sheer frustration, a  chess move that failed. On Nov. 28, 2006, Michael Morris, a Canadian  who runs a small offshore bank in the Bahamas, arrived at a bustling  Starbucks in downtown Toronto expecting to meet a woman called Ginette  Brown. The previous month, a woman by this name had called Morris at his  offices in Nassau, where he runs Barrington Bank International Ltd.,  and told him she had a client seeking financing and would Morris agree  to meet with her when he was next in Toronto? Weeks later, they arranged  to rendezvous at the Starbucks while he was in town visiting family.<\/p>\n<p>But soon after Morris sat down to wait for Brown, a bailiff server  walked up and slapped him with a subpoena. The meeting with \u201cGinette  Brown\u201d had actually been a ruse. Morris was being ordered to testify  about what assets the Barrington Bank held for Ronald Weinberg, the  former co-CEO of Cinar Corp., the Montreal children\u2019s animation company  (of <em>Arthur<\/em> and T<em>he Busy World of Richard Scarry<\/em> fame).  The subpoena had been drafted by Davies Ward Phillips &amp; Vineberg  LLP, which was pursuing Weinberg on behalf of Cinar\u2019s new owners for  millions they claimed was missing from the company\u2019s coffers \u2014 $11.3  million of which they believed was sitting in Morris\u2019 bank.<\/p>\n<p>This  bit of guile backfired, however, when Weinberg\u2019s lawyers went before  Quebec Superior Court Justice Andr\u00e9 Denis and had the subpoena tossed  out on the grounds it had been served using subterfuge. Denis was  clearly displeased, saying the bait-and-switch with the bailiff server  had the effect of \u201cdiscrediting the administration of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Offshore banking and tax havens are becoming a hot political issue with governments in North America and Europe turning their attention to assets which the rich and corporations have squirreled away offshore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[87,32,31,98,49],"class_list":["post-17667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-banking","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-financial","tag-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}