Parliamentarians have passed two Acts updating laws to “enhance Bermuda’s tax information exchange framework” in compliance with international financial regulations.

But the Opposition warned that the amendments were further signs of a global “David and Goliath” battle in which “larger welfare states sat in judgement over smaller, weaker offshore centres”.

The USA-Bermuda Tax Convention Amendment Act 2013, and the International Cooperation (Tax Information Exchange Agreements) Amendment Act 2013 were presented to the House on Friday by Attorney General Mark Pettingill.

Mr Pettingill explained that the acts would ensure “consistency, transparency and compliance with international tax information exchange standards recommended by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development”.

Mr Pettingill said that an OECD peer review last week had given Bermuda a “largely compliant” rating in its handling of requests for exchange of information under TIEA”, but that further OECD recommendations needed to be “addressed” to safeguard and advance that rating.

“These bills will address some of the recommendations by replacing the current practice of the Minister [of Finance] issuing a notice for information to the person in possession of the information with a new practice whereby the Minister would ask the court to issue a production order to the person in possession of the requested information,” he said.

Mr Pettingill said that if Bermuda forwarded requests for information before court proceedings had begun, background details as to why the request was made could be revealed and confidentiality agreements would be breached.

The amendments mean that arguments justifying the request for information will be heard in behind-closed-doors court hearings, and the courts will then have the authority to order the relevant information to be handed over.

The Progressive Labour Party signed a slew of TIEAs while in office, but on Friday Opposition MPs expressed concern at what they saw as a creeping encroachment by G8 powers on the financial affairs of Bermuda and other offshore tax jurisdictions.

They suggested that the US, UK and other nations were “continually moving the goalposts” in order to impose “tax harmonisation” and limit the advantages of jurisdictions that did not collect income tax.

Opposition leader Marc Bean said that the US and European Union states were carrying out “financial imperialism” in order to “restrict entrepreneurship and global capital flows”.

“They are the prosecutors and we are the ones on trial,” he said.

“Just because they are our neighbours that doesn’t mean that they are our friends. We have gone too long appeasing these Goliaths.”

Shadow Education Minister Walton Brown said that the issue of compliance “relates to powerful countries trying to attack the viability of our taxation system”, while Shadow Home Affairs Minister Walter Roban suggested that “they are playing a game with our livelihood”.

“The developed nations are starved of tax revenue and are looking around for low-hanging fruit,” he said.

“We have been doing this for quite some time. Going back to 1986 we have been abiding by these guidelines and it could be argued that we have become a victim of our own success, which is why the IMF want to poke into our affairs.”

But the Attorney General countered by suggesting that the Opposition was overreacting.

“One has to know when to get into a good hard fight and when to dance around it a little bit and even retreat if necessary,” he said.

“Perhaps members don’t appreciate the in-depth nature of these TIEAs and the type of situation we find ourselves in and it is not the situation where we can stand up, stick our chests out and say ‘well you can get stuffed we’re going to do our own thing’.”