The Cayman Islands is targeting rival offshore business centre Bermuda in a bid to lure the top talent.

CML Offshore Recruitment, which is based in Grand Cayman and specialises in legal recruitment, took out a half-page advertisement in The Royal Gazette last week seeking a senior associate or junior partner spearheading the development of a new start-up law firm.

The firm, which also recruits for jobs in the British Virgin Islands, other parts of the Caribbean, the Channel Islands and Dubai, as well as Bermuda, promotes itself with the tag line "consider another 'island-life'" and promises the new role will offer "generous tax-free remuneration" complemented by a "highly-incentivised profit sharing arrangement".

The new firm will be undertaking legal work for existing funds and multinational clients of a large global financial services organisation that is currently dealt with by other external law firms, as well as being involved in practice development through securing instructions from new clients.

This is the latest development in Cayman trying to attract business to its shores in the wake of the economic downturn, which has hit the islands hard, having its request to borrow £278 million to repair its huge deficits rejected by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office in September, with the authorities being advised instead to raise the money through property or payroll taxes.

But a month later it managed to avert a fiscal crisis by securing a $60 million overseas loan, but the Foreign and Commonwealth office in Britain, which oversees the Caymans and can veto foreign lending requests, has demanded that the rest of the $284 million the Cayman government says it needs will not be forthcoming until it imposes spending cuts and considers some form of direct taxation on businesses and its 57,000 residents.

Only last month, the Cayman Islands Government proposed the reintroduction of a 25-year Direct Investment Certificate for private individuals seeking to invest in the local economy, in light of the serious economic challenges the islands faced.