A group of investors is urging an Antiguan court to remove a British accounting firm appointed to collect assets of a Caribbean offshore bank at the centre of an alleged Ponzi scheme by Texas financier R. Allen Stanford.

Martin Kenney, a lawyer for the group led by Florida businessman Alexander Fundora, said his clients have asked the High Court of Antigua to remove Vantis Business Recovery Services as liquidator because a Canadian court found earlier this year that it had deleted data from computers in the Montreal branch of Stanford International Bank Limited.

"In order to recover and apportion the bank's assets in the fairest and most efficient way possible for the victims of this apparent grand fraud, it is crucial to have Vantis removed and replaced as soon as possible," Kenney said Friday from the British Virgin Islands.

Vantis was appointed by Antiguan authorities to liquidate the assets of Stanford International Bank.

A spokeswoman for the firm did not immediately return a telephone call Saturday.

Kenney said that Vantis wiped out original data on computers in the Stanford bank's branch in Montreal, Quebec, in March, without the authority of the Canadian courts and without notifying the Quebec financial regulator.

'Questionable motives'

The Superior Court in Montreal ruled in September that Vantis deliberately misled the court, destroyed original computer data, and removed financial information. Vantis operated with "questionable motives," Judge Claude Auclair wrote in the September 11 judgement.

The Canadian court subsequently replaced Vantis with Ralph Janvey, a lawyer appointed by US courts to liquidate Stanford assets.

Vantis and Janvey have been fighting for jurisdiction over the assets, frustrating investors who are eager to recover money they invested in what US authorities have alleged as a massive Ponzi scheme.

Stanford, once a benefactor of the Antiguan government, is in a Texas jail awaiting trial on charges including money laundering and fraud.

Prosecutors accuse Stanford of leading a US$7-billion Ponzi scheme by promising inflated returns to about 28,000 investors on certificates of deposits.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission said he instead used the money from new investors to pay off old ones. They also accuse him of skimming more than US$1 billion to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Stanford denies the allegations.

Regulatory integrity

Antigua, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with plans to restructure its financial system following the collapse of Stanford's island-based empire when his alleged investment fraud unravelled, the governor general said Monday.

Laws will be amended to ensure adequate monitoring and strict compliance with anti-money laundering requirements, Dame Louise Lake-Tack said during her annual speech to Parliament, laying out the government's agenda.

She accused Stanford of compromising Antigua's regulatory integrity.

The Caribbean island's top financial regulator, Leroy King, was fired after US authorities accused him of accepting more than US$100,000 in bribes to ignore Stanford's activities and of providing false information to the SEC.

Stanford provided loans to the government and became Antigua's largest private employer.

After his arrest, a group of investors filed a lawsuit against the government, accusing authorities of failing to adequately monitor Stanford International Bank Limited and of profiting from the fraud.

- AP