Agreed Paul - and at this point no one even knows what TSIG's role is with EOCnet.com. So you are correct - excitement needs to be kept in check until further details are provided. Anyways, check out the following just in case... :~)
Regards,
Phil
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Business; Financial Desk
TECHNOLOGY MORE ON TECH Bermuda E-Commerce Firm Makes
'E-Suites' Push
06/04/1999
Los Angeles Times
An investor group launched a Bermuda-based electronic-commerce company
offering virtual offices, or "e-suites," in an effort to capitalize on the island nation's lack of corporate taxes. E-suites are legal entities for companies selling goods globally on the Internet. In the largest venture to date in the British territory's push to become an offshore hub for e-commerce, EOCnet.com (http://www. eocnet .com) plans to offer thousands of e-suites.
Bermuda's reputation as a tax haven also has attracted the attention of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which during the last year have launched attacks on what the organizations call tax competition from offshore jurisdictions.
Granger Whitelaw, chief executive of EOCnet .com and a New York
investment banker, said the new venture allows companies to set up Internet and data storage sites on the island. Internet transactions will be routed to the island through the Bank of Bermuda. U.S.-based companies taking out e-suites can then classify offshore businesses as foreign sales corporations--giving them tax advantages on overseas earnings, Whitelaw said. He said EOCnet .com is the first overseas company to qualify as a safe harbor under the EU data protection laws.
"We are not trying to get people to escape taxes," Whitelaw said. "This company is promoting business globally on the Internet."
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Business
Bermudian Net firm to sell virtual offices
Marina Esplin-Jones
06/03/1999
The Times of London
An E-Commerce company based in Bermuda today makes a flamboyant entry
into the billion-dollar world of Internet marketing.
EOCnet .com promises to transform the way the world does business by
selling thousands of tax-free virtual offices, known as "e-suites" to companies such as amazon.com who do business via the Internet.
E-suites are a legal corporate entity under which companies can conduct business from the tax haven of Bermuda without the expense of a physical presence on the 22-mile-long British overseas territory. Since that business is considered to be conducted in Bermuda it is tax-free.
Granger Whitelaw, the American co-founder and chief executive of EOCnet.com, said another advantage is that the European Union, which restricts the passing of certain key personal customer data (such as cardholder details) outside its jurisdiction, has recognised the Bermuda company as a safe harbour for such data. This, for example, would make it far easier for an international bank to obtain marketing information on customers from a European branch.
Mr Whitelaw said: "We will set the standards for e-commerce. The laws and regulations in Bermuda are like the Harvard University of the offshore world."
EOCnet .com has forged strategic partnerships with Sterling Commerce, the e-commerce software provider; Bank of Bermuda, the world's largest
offshore bank; Cable & Wireless, the global telecoms company; Visa
International, the financial services company; and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountancy and consultancy firm, which will provide a guide to the corporate and individual tax laws of 120 countries.
EOCnet .com, owned by Bermuda-based EBS Ltd., was set up through
passage of a private Bill in the island's Parliament.
"The EBS Ltd. Act deals with an important issue facing e- marketers," Mr Whitelaw said. "If a transaction occurs in cyberspace where does it occur? According to this legislation, it occurs here in Bermuda, even if the transaction is between a customer in Singapore and a company in Syracuse, New York. As long as the company from Syracuse resides in an EOCnet.com e-suite, the transaction is deemed to have happened here at the company's Bermuda entity."
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Lure of the Bermuda triangle
Marina Esplin-Jones
06/07/1999
The Times of London
Marina Esplin-Jones finds out why new telecoms firms head for the tiny tax haven
It is no coincidence that a series of billion-dollar telecoms deals have originated from the tiny tax haven of Bermuda these past few weeks. The corporate world is talking about a new Bermuda triangle - one that is linking global communications upstarts based offshore with mainland investors and takeover targets via the US or London stock exchanges.
The 22-mile-long island already surprises many people when they discover that insurance, and not tourism, is the biggest industry. Now it is attracting a new kind of growth industry. A slew of cable, satellite and Internet start-ups, including Global Crossing, Iridium, Globalstar and Britain's ICO, which are competing to launch phone systems that roam anywhere, have all opted for a Bermuda base.
So has Tyco International, the US manufacturing and cable group, and
Project Oxygen, which plans a global underwater fibre-optic network. The island also recently welcomed its first major player in the promising world of offshore e-commerce.
"As we become a global company, and derive income from hundreds of
different places, it makes sense to be in a location that has neutral and favourable tax treaties with as many different countries as possible," says Mac Jeffery, the communications director of Globalstar, which is in the satellite phone business.
There is no arguing that escaping tax and government bureaucracy is the main advantage of a Bermuda domicile. But why have these global
corporations chosen Bermuda to set up office and not one of the many other offshore financial centres? The Cayman Islands, Barbados and the Channel Islands are also favourite domiciles of foreign companies looking for tax breaks, banking confidentiality and less red tape; and they are cheaper to operate than in Bermuda, where the average wage is nearly $700 (Pounds 440) per week.
The answer is that Bermuda has been able to offer credibility and good
communications along with its zero income and corporate tax. Bermuda's
clean image is important because, to a large degree, these communications start-ups must raise the money to build their networks in the sky and under the sea through the sale of shares.
Tyco and Global Crossing left Wall Street buzzing last month after clinching two merger deals from their Bermuda offices worth a total of $40 billion. They are both counting on strong gains in their share prices to finance the takeovers.
Tyco, whose products range from fire alarms to undersea fibre- optic cables, bought its 100th company, America's Raychem, for $2.9 billion from its small four-person office in Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda. The company is listed on the New York, London and Bermuda stock exchanges
Brad McGee, senior vice-president of Tyco International, says his company's Bermuda location actually came out of its merger a few years ago with ADT, the security business built by Michael Ashcroft, the Tory party treasurer treated with a great deal of caution by the City and who is known for his fondness for exotic tax havens. Ashcroft sold off ADT for $5.4 billion, receiving $250 million himself, after a controversial hostile bid by Western Resources.
"We're going to stay in Bermuda," Mr McGee says. "There are some tax
advantages of being in Bermuda and we're very active here from the
standpoint of charitable work. Plus we like it."
Global Crossing, which acquired US West for $37 billion, has spent almost $50 billion from its Bermuda headquarters in the past year, morphing into a global giant from a fledgeling firm. Not to be accused of being a paper company, it recently went on a recruiting drive in Bermuda and opened a 50-person customer service centre.
"Most international cable operators do come to Bermuda because the
Government there treats them favourably," says Robert Annunziata, the
Global Crossing chief executive, who achieved the remarkable feat of making $90 million in the 90 days that he has been with the company. "Personally, I go there as much as I can - just for the weather."
Not all the news out of Bermuda is good. Iridium, which with its $5 billion network in the sky was the first company to offer a satellite phone service, has struggled with technological delays and in finding customers. Its shares have fallen from a high of $61 to a current low of about $8. To save itself from the danger of disappearing in the Bermuda triangle it must prove to its lenders by June 30 that it can meet certain customer and revenue targets.
Despite the Iridium blip, Bermuda is still attracting new business at a frightening rate, largely because of a regulatory lightness of touch.
Granger Whitelaw, the chief executive of EOCnet .com, which launched
itself from Bermuda on Thursday selling "e-suites" to Internet businesses, says that Bermuda is known in corporate circles as the Rolls-Royce of offshore centres.
"In a nutshell, Bermuda possesses something beyond what the casual tourist sees," Mr Whitelaw says. "It has a forward-thinking, progressive Government, with lawmakers who are business-savvy and business-friendly. It also has the only US SEC-recognised offshore stock exchange. Cayman simply does not have the same level of regulatory and legal environment."
Bermuda has escaped the corruption and fraud scandals that have plagued some Caribbean islands, largely because it has not allowed offshore banking in, and it has rigid know-your-client laws to counter money-laundering. It was also one of the first offshore centres to set up a monetary authority.
"Bermuda has always been very selective about who it allows to incorporate here," says Grant Gibbons, a Bermudian businessman and politician. "Here, we have 10,000-odd companies, where in other jurisdictions there are tens of thousands of companies."
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In addition, check out the following stories...
emarketer.com
bermudasun.org
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