In a session at the Bermuda Captive Conference here, titled “Bermuda—A New Domicile For Canadian Captives,” panelists observed that the playing field has been leveled, providing Bermuda with opportunities that previously had only been afforded to the captive domicile of Barbados.

Barbados, they said, currently has 246 Canadian captives.

They noted that Bermuda offers a number of benefits including that fact that it is convenient to much of Canada; provides easy access to the commercial reinsurance market; has quality service providers, offering “one-stop shopping”; and now has the Canadian-Bermuda Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) as of July 1.

Jill Husbands, a managing director and head of the Bermuda office of Marsh Management Services (Bermuda) Ltd., recently told NU Online News Service, “We are seeing great interest from Canadian companies to set up captives in Bermuda.”

Cox noted in a statement that, “currently, there are 1,145 entities with Canadian interest, and this number is expected to grow exponentially.”

The industry has been looking forward to this news, the Ministry of Finance said, adding that Canadian companies are heavily involved in the captive, hedge-fund and private-equity areas of the international business sector and more recently in the banking arena.

Bermuda has 24 agreements with provisions for the exchange of information for tax purposes, the Ministry of Finance said.

Upon signing the TIEA with Canada, Bermuda has 22 signed agreements with provisions for the exchange of information for tax purposes.

Bermuda has signed TIEAs with the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands), Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands Antilles, France, Mexico, Aruba, Japan and Portugal. Further, Bermuda has a double-taxation agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Bermuda's proposed TIEA with Canada includes all standard means to ensure due process is followed in tax information requests to Bermuda, including provisions to protect the confidentiality of information provided, as well as adhering to public policy; provisions related to protecting legal privilege; and provisions to ensure that requests for information from Canada are relevant to tax investigations being conducted by Canadian authorities, the Ministry of Finance said.