THE on-line subscription news service , the provider of "institutional and high net worth competitive intelligence", reported recently that Bermuda's pension fund consultant Tina Poitevien had given up political fund-raising activities, "mainly because of the headline risk involved".

has some 30,000 paid subscribers, and executive editor Chris Sandlund said that more than 1,000 subscribers had accessed a story head-lined "US Consultant Fights Bermuda Pay-To-Play Claims".

The service describes itself as "an online daily covering asset management for institutional investors such as pension funds and foundations/endowments, including asset managers, consultants, plan sponsors, attorneys and government officials".

Mr. Ed Swan, president of Ms Poitevien's FIS Group, told that the $2,500-per-plate "fund-raising" lunch for Transport and Tourism Minister Ewart Brown, organised by Ms Poitevien in Washington, DC in March 2002, had "generated numerous unwelcome headlines, and FIS group had spent time reassuring its other clients".

All of its clients had been "very supportive", and he said that FIS group "receives revenues only from its pension fund clients, not from any managers".

Mr. Swan stayed resolutely "on message", insisting that Dr. Brown has a large number of friends in the US, and that a group of them got together for lunch.

"It's no more complicated that that," insisted Mr. Swan. In the two months since the first reported the lunch, Dr. Brown has made no such claim, nor has he responded to a number of requests for further information.

He may be aware, as Ms Poitevien and Mr. Swan appear not to be, that such a coterie of friends might require an explanation of some extraordinary coincidences and unusual circumstances: that his wife's close friend Ms Poitevien was the US pension consultant best suited to receive a lucrative consulting contract from the Bermuda Government in which he is a Minister; that the award of that contract had no bearing on Ms Poitevien's organisation of the "fund-raising" lunch; that Ms Poitevien had to remind his "friends", on the invitation, that Dr. Brown was a member of the Bermuda Government, and of the PLP; that they were asked to mail their cheques for $2,500 to Ms Poitevien at FIS, made out to "Dr. Ewart Brown (PLP)", rather than simply hand them to their friend at the lunch; and perhaps hardest to explain, the extraordinary coincidence that between ten and 15 of Dr. Brown's American friends had been appointed Bermuda pension fund managers or were stockbrokers trading with those managers.

In fact, some of the people invited to lunch told the that they had never met or heard of Dr. Brown, and even Ms Poitevien's stockbroker fianc? McCullough (Mac) Williams III, who confirmed that he attended the lunch and made a contribution to Dr. Brown, would only offer that Dr. Brown "seemed very nice". reporter Chris Larson wrote that Ms Poitevien had been involved in political fund-raising only "about three times" in her "more than 15-year career", an increase on the "two times" previously conceded by an FIS spokeswoman. Sources told the that Ms Poitevien's fund-raising activities have been considerably more extensive. reminded its readers that "it's not uncommon for money managers to donate to politicians", and reassured them that "it's perfectly legal in many cases". However, there was at least "the appearance of impropriety", and "some say the practice should be banned or at least restricted".

Mr. Larson reported that "such was exactly the case in New Jersey last year". The $67-billion New Jersey State Investment Council passed a rule last September that forbids money managers from making donations to New Jersey politicians if the money manager does business, or seeks to do business, with the state's pension fund.

Meanwhile, Ms Aileen Rappaport of PFIC fund manager Loomis Sayles, another business associate of Ms Poitevien's who is understood to have been invited to the Washington lunch, and was the first of the 47 names of money managers on Calvin White's invitation to the 2003 PLP Golf Classic, continued to refuse to respond to questions asking whether she had attended the lunch or made a contribution to Dr. Brown, or whether she had ever attended PLP events or made political contributions to the PLP.

She referred questions to Loomis Sayles' public relations spokesman Chris Lazzaro, who has failed to respond to any of eight voice-mail messages left over a period of four weeks.

New Hampshire-based pension attorney Alan Cleveland was said by to want wider reforms, and pointed to the 1999 SEC proposal to outlaw "pay-to-play" activities whose adoption ran into political opposition. He was said to be unaware of the situation in Bermuda and declined to comment on it, but told that "pay-to-play" practices "not only erode the integrity and fairness of money management and destroy investor confidence and trust, but are just plain wrong conduct for fiduciaries entrusted with other people's money. Something better than the morals of the marketplace is required".

A request for comment from FIS was referred to its local lawyer, Mr. N.A. Cottle, who said he was advised not to speak to the press or anyone else.