A lawyer in Bermuda has launched a stinging attack on the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
Warren Cabral, a resident partner of Appleby Spurling & Kempe, said the FSA was creating a "sclerotic" regulation regime, which was stunting UK insurers' commercial growth .
Cabral said the Insurance Companies Act [1982] and the FSA were detrimental to London Market insurers' businesses.
"The combination of UK statutory regulation, the regulatory activity of the FSA and Lloyd's own rule book make it sclerotic," he said. "Regulation is a bramble through which they have to pass and push their way through."
He said setting up a new company in the UK could take up to one year because of regulatory processes. In Bermuda it would take ten working days.
Cabral added that his firm was now helping a couple of traditional firms to set up new vehicles overseas because UK regulation was so prohibitive.
"Two existing London Market players are going to create a fresh holding structure," he said. "They will reverse themselves offshore."
The start-ups will be backed by venture capitalists with a share capital of $500m (£349m). They will underwrite a mixed book of non-marine business and could be operational in a month.
Cabral said the UK should use the Bermudian "class structure" where companies dealing with a high degree of loss have tighter regulation.
