still in the balance.

David Keough, chief financial officer of Heddington Insurance, was suspended in a race row involving Heddington's US-based parent company Texaco.

Mr. Keough and another executive who worked for Texaco in 1994 were suspended following the release of tapes of a meeting at which it is alleged racist remarks were made.

The statements were recorded by former Texaco chief Richard Lundwall at meetings of the company's finance department.

After Mr. Lundwall's position was made redundant and he retired, he turned the tapes over to a lawyer suing Texaco for discrimination.

Texaco bosses suspended Mr. Keough and the other executive on full pay after the tapes were made public last week and ordered an immediate inquiry.

At the taped meeting, black workers were alleged to have been called "niggers'' and "black jelly beans'' and Kwanzaa celebrations were mocked.

Executives at the meetings also allegedly discussed the destruction of key evidence in a discrimination lawsuit brought by workers.

But analysis of the tapes by outside investigators hired by Texaco claims the word "nigger'' was not used by former Texaco chief Robert Ulrich.

Investigators said the word he used was Nicholas, a reference to St. Nicholas -- Santa Claus.

Mr. Ulrich's reference to jelly beans, it is said in a preliminary report, is a term commonly used in diversity training to show how different colours can be mixed while each retains its identity and "does not appear to have been intended as a racial slur.'' Texaco chairman Peter Bijur said he still found the tone of the conversations unacceptable.

Mr. Lundwall was among the Texaco executives who gave depositions in a $450 million class-action lawsuit brought by 1,500 black employees of the oil giant who claim they were denied promotion and advancement.

The row prompted calls for Mr. Keough -- if found to be guilty of racist comments -- to be put on the Bermuda stop list.

Home Affairs Minister Quinton Edness declined to comment until a committee set up by Texaco to probe the allegations reported.

"I can't say what would happen or could happen if Mr. Keough is found to have been at fault,'' he said. "In general terms, it's fairly well known that the Government and people of Bermuda do not wish anyone to be in Bermuda in an official capacity who is a blatant racist.

"If anyone was known to us as someone who was involved in these kind of slanders against black people or Jewish people, we would not wish to welcome them to come to Bermuda.''