Bermuda will receive around $22.5 million as its share of funds confiscated from the IPOC International Growth Fund, as agreement was reached to wind up the fund in Supreme Court yesterday.

Around $45 million was confiscated as a results of a criminal conviction of IPOC in the British Virgin Islands and Finance Minister Paula Cox last night confirmed that the money will be divided equally between the two territories after the joint investigation.

Mark Diel, representing IPOC, said he had been instructed by his client not to contest the winding up of the Fund and eight related companies during a 10-minute Supreme Court hearing yesterday. Puisne Judge Ian Kawaley approved the winding-up orders and an agreement between the parties that IPOC should pay the costs — understood to be around $1.6 million — of the Bermuda legal team assigned to the case.

IPOC has made headlines around the world and has caused reputational damage to Bermuda amid allegations that it was a $1 billion money-laundering vehicle for Russian Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman — claims the Minister has consistently denied. A legal battle over ownership rights to a stake in Russian telecommunications firm Megafon has seen IPOC appearing in the courts of the Bahamas, BVI and Switzerland, as well as in Bermuda.

Delighted Finance Minister Paula Cox said: "We were committed to protecting Bermuda and sending a signal to the world — Bermuda does not trifle with its reputation."

She added that there had been "more angles and twists and turns than a James Bond novel" in the long and complicated case. And she lavished high praise on the Bermuda team — including lawyers, Police officers and Finance Ministry officials — who had worked to achieve yesterday's outcome.

"For me — what is powerful and the best aspect is that we stayed collectively to the wicket and had Bermuda's interests at heart — we wanted to see that we protected Bermuda's national interest and reputation," Minister Cox said.

Mr. Justice Kawaley paid tribute to lawyers for both IPOC and the Bermuda team representing the Attorney General for negotiating a settlement of the highly complex case in good time. The negotiations had been "a tribute to common sense", he said.

"I should commend the legal teams on both sides for having resolved a very complicated matter which could possibly have gone on, without a satisfactory resolution to anybody, for many more years to come," Mr. Justice Kawaley said.

"The hearings were always challenging and they will, to a certain extent, be missed, I think," he added, to a ripple of laughter from assembled attorneys.

Ms Cox instructed the Registrar of Companies to file the petition to wind up the companies in January 2007. The companies in question were IPOC Capital Partners Ltd., IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd., Gamma Capital Fund Ltd., Convergence Capital Ltd., Com Tel Eastern Ltd., First National Telecommunication Fund Ltd., Convergence Capital Management Ltd., Augmentation Investments Ltd. and Telco Overseas Ltd.

An IPOC task force headed by former Director of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser, with Susan Davis-Crockwell and Renee Foggo, was assigned to deal with the IPOC case. As well as working on the winding-up petition, they liaised with the BVI authorities in a joint criminal investigation, which resulted in IPOC being convicted on charges of furnishing false information and perverting the course of justice. The probe entailed sifting through half a million documents.

Ms Cox commended the "stellar work" of the trio and supporting external counsel. "In the court proceedings it has been the locally-based team who have carried the torch," she said. "National pride and the principle at stake required that we did not cave in and not take the easy way out.

"The outcome is a vindication and though people can say there are not many cases of successful prosecution of anti-money laundering cases, this was a long and tortuous route and it required painstaking, methodical work, years of work.

"There were thousands of pages and bundles of documents tracing the interlocking arrangements in terms of corporate structure, the multi-disciplinary and muti-jurisdictional approach."

Ms Cox said she had appointed accountancy firm KPMG to inspect the Fund under the Minister of Finance's inherent powers under section 132 of the Companies Act. The inspectors had carried out "extremely detailed investigations" which had entailed visits to Russia.

"Some would have wished us to make a deal but we were committed to protecting Bermuda and we did not blink. We set out to have the companies wound up and not to agree to a discontinuance to another country.

"It was to make clear that Bermuda is serious about protecting Bermuda's reputation. We were not prepared to take the easy way out and take money and compromise and allow the companies to disappear in the dead of the night without a national sanction."

The team was proud, pleased and relieved, she added. "It is immensely gratifying. If I had within my remit a Minister's award, all those who have been involved would garner it from me," Ms Cox said.