The Court of Appeal has ruled it has no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal by reinsurer Kemper Re in the latest legal battle involving the controversy surrounding the move from Massachusetts to Bermuda by Electric Mutual Liability Insurance Co..

Kemper Re sought to appeal a Supreme Court decision that set aside earlier court approval for judicial review of the 1995 decision to allow General Electric Co.'s liability insurer to move.

Kemper Re has also sought in Massachusetts a review of the decision by the US regulators to allow EMLICO to leave. The reinsurer and others have alleged the move was allowed because GE and EMLICO had deliberately concealed their deteriorating financial condition.

The company moved here in July, 1995 and within a few months declared itself insolvent. Reinsurers claimed it deliberately moved to Bermuda for the purpose of liquidation because the liquidation laws here favoured it against the reinsurers, more so than if it stayed in the US.

GE and EMLICO have contended that it was as a result of a change in the required solvency calculations that led to their deteriorating position after they moved to Bermuda.

They also deny the allegations of fraud and claim the reinsurers are simply trying to deny their liability under the reinsurance contracts.

Court of Appeal president, Sir James Astwood, rendered the court's decision on Tuesday after nearly six days of hearings by upholding preliminary objections by EMLICO liquidators to Kemper's appeal. Reasons will be given later.

Kemper Re is now considering an appeal to the Privy Council and its lawyer requested an opportunity to seek leave from the Court of Appeals for that application.

Such a hearing may be heard before the Court of Appeals rises for the summer next week Thursday, once the Court's reasons have been handed down.

EMLICO's joint liquidators, who include David Lines and Peter Mitchell of Coopers & Lybrand Bermuda, said in a prepared statement: "The three judge panel's dismissal of the appeal represents the latest in a series of defeats (that) Kemper Re, a significant reinsurer of EMLICO, has suffered.

"This includes an unsuccessful challenge to EMLICO's winding-up petition in Bermuda and an unsuccessful challenge in Massachusetts Superior Court to Massachusetts regulators decision to allow EMLICO's redomestication into Bermuda.''