Great Designer Fashion Styles

There are quite a few varieties of fashion shoe and handbag styles, but some are better known than others. Coach shoes and handbags are among the more well-known, and some of the other famous brands include Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs. Status handbags are more expensive than others, but designer handbags are something that many women like to splurge on, to make themselves feel good.

Marc Jacobs tweed bags show that the 80’s can still be fun if we remember them fondly. This company truly understands the retro influence on fashion, and each creation is proof that Jacobs is a quirky genius as a designer.

Muse bags are made by Yves Saint Laurent, and they make many accessories as well, for women looking for a chic flair. Muse merges different styles into feminine and unique bags and accessories that are sure to compliment women’s active lifestyles. These bags are playful and a little sexy, and they make handbags in many different sizes.

Coach is possibly the best known designer of handbags and shoes. Coach heels and Coach boots are among the most highly favored of the designer shoes available, and this brand combines logic and magic to create shoes and handbags that are obviously made of quality materials with good value and an American style that is distinctive and inspirational. Each pair of Coach sneakers or Coach heels reflects the attributes of the Coach brand.

Coach shoes are not normally available at discount prices, because they are top sellers without needing to lower prices. They offer excellent service that will make sure your needs as a customer are met. They treat customers buying Coach shoes like guests, and they like to establish relationships for the long term, based on satisfaction and trust.

Designer shoes like Coach heels are symbols of design and luxury in one. Amid the many brands available, it’s no mistake that so many people clamor for Coach shoes. Seldom seen at a discount, they are nonetheless snatched up at a fast pace.

The success of Coach shoes and Coach boots, as well as their well-known handbags, shows off their devotion to fairness and honesty, as concerning their own business as well as the communities they are located in. The company stands behind Coach shoes, Coach sneakers and handbags, because they realize that their reputation is reflected in everything they make.

You can find Coach boots and Coach heels at retail stores and sites online. Originally their handbags were made from the same leather used for baseball gloves. Now there are so many styles of Coach shoes, too, that you are never at a loss, regardless of the occasion. They use other materials in addition to leather now, to craft their fine Coach boots and Coach shoes. Available in every fabric and style you might want, Coach shoes are the toast of the town. While their most current collection tends to show off many casual espadrilles, flip-flops and sandals, you can also find the Coach name on excellently-designed sandals and stilettos. You’ll never go wrong wearing the Coach name.

Eco Travel World Wide

Although the words Eco travel have been popping up a lot more over the past few years, its definition is often misunderstood or not known at all. Possibly you have also heard the word Eco tourism and they are used interchangeably because of their common definition. So what do they mean? Eco travel is planning a responsible vacation to places that conserve the environment. They also contribute to the well being of their community while practicing ethical policies.

The amount of interest in Eco friendly travel has soared, as people become more and more aware of environmental issues. Recycling and reducing vehicle emissions. Lowering the use of energy all makes a difference. Now your Eco travel vacation can also make a difference.

There are different things to look for to know if the vacation your are planning is environmentally and socially friendly. Let’s say for an example you went to a resort. You would check if they use environmentally friendly, recycled products? Are they committed to preserving their wild and marine life and the environment? Increase knowledge of local community and benefits socioeconomically and affordability? Not using wasteful products to make the area more attractive? Do the profits go back into the community? Do they employ local people and pay them fair wages, which is referred to as fair trade? These are all things to consider before deciding on your destination

Government and local communities are starting to work together to conserve their environment while providing much need employment in the area. There are many programs now available to help people in the tourism industry and program directors increase their knowledge of Eco travel, Eco tourism. Consumers that are ethically aware of fair trade have drastically increased sales in the tourism industry by over 50% on any given holiday.

There are now a wide variety of areas in different Countries that offer Eco travel vacations. The industry has grown so much over the past few years that it has become difficult to choose which one. From Costa Rico to Hawaii to Antarctica the choices are endless. Be aware of conservation of our environment and make Eco travel part of your next vacation.

The Perfect Wood For Home Furniture

The most popular and durable wood for the furniture is pine wood. This wood has many unique qualities. It has the style, comfort and the durability of lifetime. This wood is very stiff and can easily bear sever climatic conditions. If you want to buy new furniture for your home then the pine furniture is an ideal choice to go.

This is very easy task for you to modernize your residence and will be very cost effective way to get a fresh appearance to your home. The wooden furniture is a better choice to renovate the house. The wood will last for many years and only the color will fade that can be fixed very easily whenever needed.

This can be easily identified by having a look at the furniture edges. If you notice that the edges of the furniture are faded due to some sort of wear and tear then you should think of recycling the furniture.

The wear and tear may be the result of some daily cleaning or the sun light effect. But, this is not any issue and don’t waste your furniture just get it painted again.

First of all you should take the loose fragments of the item away and then scrap the edges that are needed to be coated again gently with a good cement scraper. Then re-coat the item again and you will get a new piece of furniture again with the original shine.

Then the damp cloth piece can be used to remove the extra pieces from the wooden surface.

The sand paper can make the surface ready to paint and remove the splinters off. You can now coat the item with the varnish or the wood stain whatever you like. You can also give it a new look by painting it with the desired color.

The whole process is very easy it will not affect the furniture at all. You might have understood that the pine furniture can be the best choice to buy.

Italy Travel Info – Plan a Better Trip

Italy is a hot vacation spot and there is so much to see you can get quite overwhelmed planning your vacation. Everybody feels compelled to hit the big three, Venice, Florence, and Rome. These are incredible cities with many great sites to visit and famous objects (art, architecture, etc.) to see. Here’s some Italy travel info to help you plan a better trip.

Here’s a simple fact, you cannot see everything in a single vacation, and the attempt to do so becomes very stressful, robbing you of the fun and excitement you planned. The thousands of years of history found in Italy (about 5,000 years of civilized history to be more precise) make it impossible to absorb in a few days, weeks, or months. You need to decide what you really want to see and build your trip around this rather than try and see everything. I would like you to think about a better way to see Italy with less stress, less expense, and more enjoyment. How? Plan your trip and get out of the major tour cities and into the lesser strained hill towns and fortified villages.

Say you are planning a trip to Florence. Identify the top three to five sites you wish to see and give yourself two or three days to see them. Once this is scheduled, take out a map of the region and start looking at the many incredible sites within a couple of hours of Florence. The big secondary sites include Pisa (worth a half a day at least), Lucca (also worth at least half a day), and Montecatinni (a spa town with open markets, grand parks, and an ancient hill town overlooking the town below). To the south of Florence are such well known sites as Siena (easily worth a full day), San Gimingano (get here early to avoid the crowds), and Volterra (worth at least half a day and one of the most interesting of Tuscan hill towns).

By picking day trips to one or two of these other towns between your planned excursions in Florence will allow you to experience a more intimate Italy. Enjoy a walk along the curtain wall surrounding Lucca (the wall is now a park and trail), then pop over to Pisa for a gander of the Tower, Basilica and more white marble than you have ever seen in one place. Another day you can stroll the narrow medieval streets of Siena, Then head on over to Volterra and explore the Etruscans, Romans, and the architecture and fortifications of a typical walled hill town.

Each of these towns is rich in history and tradition and will give you a better sense of rural and small town Italy. Each of the big three have dozens of great secondary sites nearby, all worth a visit, making planning trips as described above easy and fun.

Relax and get in sync with the slower pace of rural Italy, wander the myriad shops and cafés, and watch lovely sunsets or sunrises. A trip to Italy should be fun, relaxing, and truly a trip of a lifetime. The true beauty of Italy is that you can have several of these “trips of a lifetime”, never seeing the same places twice (unless you want to, I know we have).

Should Travelers Who Book Direct Get Fairer Fare Prices?

A travel website that does not sell travel but enables travelers to save money on travel as long as they do their own bookings is now offering services to internet travelers. This service is a unique addition to travel options for all travelers comfortable with direct bookings using a new type of travel document called a TopTravelVoucher.

The operators of this service are addressing the issue of travel pricing which often includes a 10 to 25% mark-up to allow for the payment of travel agent commission to either wholesalers or retailers but when travelers buy directly from the provider (accommodations, tours or transportation) they can still pay the price inclusive of commission. To overcome the travel providers’ problems of showing multiple prices for the same products and services on their websites, they can now offer ‘fair fare prices’ by issuing TopTravelVouchers.

Travel Providers are given marketing and promotion in exchange for their own travel vouchers, equivalent to or more than, the commission that would be payable upon sale of their various travel packages and services, so they still incur the commission cost on sales but do not have to alienate their distribution chain of wholesalers and retailers by offering a retail, wholesale or ‘direct’ price on their website. This is done by the voucher operator who sells their vouchers to travelers at deep discounts to their redemption values to be used when making direct bookings, hence a travel agent who does not sell travel, only travel vouchers and therefore is not a travel agent.

According to the website information of the voucher operator, they are able to offer the ‘Fair Fare Price’ option because they do not have the normal operating costs of travel agencies such as shops, reservation systems, brochures, advertising and high staffing levels, but can still offer the traveler and the travel provider a service that is fair to all users.

Before purchasing TopTravelVouchers, travelers are advised to check for quality and availability directly with the website of their travel selection and when satisfied, make a direct booking mentioning the voucher, then purchase the voucher. All vouchers come with a 100% money-back guarantee and in the event that the traveler is not happy with their travel purchase upon completion, the cost of the TopTravelVouchers will be reimbursed and the matter taken up with the provider.

There are three levels of vouchers, $30, $50 and $100usd achieving various levels of savings but to give an example, at the time of this article there was a voucher valued at 1,500 euros (around $2,000usd) on sale for $100usd. If the vouchers are purchased outside of the USA the price is shown in the relevant currency. All vouchers are issued online and the provider is also sent a duplicate with the traveler details to encourage assistance in any travel itinerary planning of the traveler.

So as not to deter expert travel agents and agencies from participation in this service the site invites them to identify any destination and activity expertise and to also offer vouchers to encourage travelers to seek out expert professional agents. Many retail agents offer their own travel packages and tours and many are comfortable in dealing with new clients from anywhere in the world over the internet, telephone or skype. The site cautions travelers to be careful when selecting ‘specialist’ agents who are not necessarily experts and who may have just taken a simple test operated by a tourism office or tour operator promoting their own destination or products.

The travel selections with TopTravelVouchers are limited at present but the site operators are confident in the growth potential, but if you want to see what is available, you can find them at toptravelsites.

Bracelets – Great Adornments to Accentuate One’s Fashion Style

From every perspective, bracelets are absolutely great adornments for fashion conscious women to make their fashion statement and infuse their personal styles with new vitality. Great bracelets can help to set you apart from the crowd. With the embellishment of gorgeous bracelets, your old outdated outfit may even obtain new glamour beyond your expectation.

Over the years, the designs and styles of bracelets have evolved a lot. Apart from the traditional silver and gold bracelets, you can also find leather wristbands, wood bangles and many other bracelets made from unique materials of distinct styles. Nowadays, personalized or customized wristbands are really popular. People like to attach pendants carrying special meaningful notes to the bracelets as their lucky wristband.

Bracelets can help to highlight one’s personality greatly. Just like clothes or any other fashion accessories, stunning bracelets do have the ability to make you stand out in the crowd and make a deep impression on others. For example, rock and roll style bracelets can reflect your bold characters and funky fashion attitude.

Generally speaking, chunky jewelry is in trend this season, while there are still many people who show their constant passion for subtle and tiny jewelry. No matter whether it is a chunky style or tiny style, it is really chic to wear several pieces of bracelets together at the same time.

You must believe that gorgeous bracelets can add great fancies to your outfit and do you a great favor to become the center of attention. However, when you select the bracelets, you should still stick to your own preference and personal style.

Famous Style Icons

Have you ever wondered what a style icon is? Can a style icon actually be a fashion victim, someone who cannot help but follow all the trends all the time? This couldn’t be further from the truth! They are actually women who have the whole package: fashion style, personality and confidence. Such a person doesn’t ever follow a fashion trend but creates them.

In our days being a style icon means much more than having good taste. What you wear seems to be less important than how you wear it. But back in time style icons helped us shape the way we think about fashion and style.

One of the ladies that has re-written the book of fashion is Gabrielle “Coco” Channel. Not only has she dazzled the whole world with her creations but she is responsible for the famous “little black dress” and her famous perfume, among many other things. Jackie Kennedy might have had a tormented life but her fashion style was way ahead of her time. She was among the first women who wore jackets designed by Coco Channel with a simple pair of jeans. Another important style icon that has impressed the audience not only because of her slender figure and pixie haircut but by the simple and yet fabulous way she wore even the most common outfits is Audrey Hepburn.

In our days the style icons are many but among the first that come to mind are: Kate Moss, Michelle Obama and Sarah Jessica Parker. Their styles can be adopted by almost every woman. Having a style of their own these three powerful women are not afraid to express their personalities through the outfits that they put together. Kate Moss is famous for her sexy clothes as she can be seen wearing short pants and leather jackets most of the time when she goes out. SJP on the other hand opts for glamorous and romantic clothes that impress everyone on the red carpet. Because most of the time she appears at official meetings, Michelle Obama chooses to dress elegant and yet casual and practical. Her choice in clothes is admirable and can be an inspiration for most women.

Fashion is relative and it is the way you wear the clothes that matters. Trusting your instincts is something that you should do at all times. You can create wonderful and original outfits by choosing to wear the things that you look and feel great it!

Feng Shui in the Home – Furniture For Free Flowing Energy

Arranging or rearranging your home’s furniture is probably the easiest way to implement feng shui in the home. Furniture in your home says so much about the home owner’s personality. We often see something we like and decorate our house with it, not considering how it will react “energy-wise” with the space it is in and the surrounding items. You may decorate your room with your favorite color not realizing that too much of one color can create an imbalance of harmony that can affect areas of your life. When looking to optimize feng shui in the home, furniture placement, arrangement and color are very important aspects to consider.

Furniture is also considered an “inhabitant” of your home. This is because it takes up space and energy in your home as much as you do or as much as your plants and pets do. You should look at and consider how all the “inhabitants” of your home interact with each other. Is balance maintained? Is there conflict? Is everything in harmony? These are the kinds of questions that you would want to have answers to when looking to rearrange or redecorate your home.

Once you decide to apply feng shui in the home, furniture should be one of the first things to consider in terms of how the item represents a Feng Shui element. Usually, the color is the first thing that people look at. Shape comes second, material comes last. Most objects or furnishings are easy to “read”-it will represent two or more elements (i.e. from the 5 element theory), and you can take this as the first step to understanding the Feng Shui element expressions of the various items in your home.

When considering feng shui in the home, furniture can also dictate and give you understanding of how chi enters and flows throughout your environment. With them you can see the relationship between what you have materially and what effect it has on your life. Using Feng Shui in furniture gives you a sense of the kind of energy objects emit, how they speak to you and how they affect your general well being.

Here are a few tips on how to properly arrange your furniture so that they follow Feng Shui theory:

Move tall pieces of furniture away from your line of vision. Tall, big objects that loom over you give you a feeling of anxiety, and reduce your sense of well being.

Avoid huge pieces of furniture that can just translate to clutter. Clutter not only messes up the flow of chi in your home, but indicates stagnant energy as well. Avoid clutter in every aspect of your life, as it gives nothing but bad energy.

When implementing feng shui in the home, furniture can be used to camouflage offending or hard-to-remedy problems. Bedrooms are prone to a lot of sharp, jutting corners that symbolize “poison arrows”. Poison arrows bring health and marital or relationship problems.

Remember that less is always more, when placing furniture in a room. Too much furniture not only makes the room feel cramped, but restricts the flow of energy as well.

Furniture size and positioning should also be made proportional to the size of the room or home.

Phoenix Real Estate – Is it Time to Move to Phoenix?

Phoenix Arizona continues to be a booming area. In 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau News published statistics showing that Phoenix continues to have substantial growth. Of the larger metropolitan areas (population of 2 million or more), Phoenix grew the most followed by Dallas, Houston and Atlanta.

Why wouldn’t people relocate to Phoenix? Phoenix is a city that boasts over 315 days of sunshine per year on average and has over 200 golf courses. Winters are extremely mild and for most a coat is not needed.

New businesses continue to move to Phoenix making a decent job market (in these tough times). Phoenix has successful professional sports teams such as the Arizona Cardinals, Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks, to name a few. Additionally there are terrific cultural events, theater performances and concerts.

Phoenix has several lakes nearby for boating, waterskiing or putting out the waverunner. Lake Pleasant, Apache Lake, and Lake Roosevelt or short drives from the Phoenix area. For the outdoorsman or woman, the pine country of Flagstaff or the Mogollan rim is also just a short drive. There are many hiking trails and camp sites for the weekend warriors.

The Phoenix real estate market continues to slump. When the recession hit, Phoenix was one of the key areas impacted. With the excessive growth in value over the past years, Phoenix home values continue to correct. Homes can be purchased now at a fraction of the price of prior years. It is a great buying opportunity for people looking to relocate to a sunny dry climate.

When an Offshore Bank Fails

Introduction – What we are going to do is describe the legal and mechanical process relating to offshore bank failures. We will discuss what leads up to them, what happens if they fail, and how do the depositors get their money back. The terms and scenarios we depict are generally what happens in the world of offshore banking. In some jurisdictions the terminology and procedures may be slightly different but the general way things proceed will be in line with the scenarios depicted in this article.

Offshore Banks – A brief definition of this term is in order. These are banks that are located in various countries around the world many being in Caribbean Island Nations. These banks have a license that enables them to only do business with people and entities (trusts and corporations) that are not from that country. The offshore jurisdiction does not trust the offshore bank to accept deposits from its citizens or corporation filed in that country. This right away should tell a moderately astute investor that he or she is perhaps not exercising the correct amount of caution when it comes to selecting a bank and an offshore jurisdiction. So the first warning sign is be careful of offshore banking licenses. A bank can be in an offshore jurisdiction and not have an offshore banking license, instead be a regularly licensed bank. Offshore bank licenses can be had in some jurisdictions with as little as a $50,000 deposit with the country issuing the license. Usually this amount is never more than $500,000 and many countries require less. As a point of comparison a regular bank operating in Panama is required to post $10,000,000 cash deposit and the owners go through a rigorous background investigation.

Bank Failure – This is a term relating to the offshore bank being unable to fulfill the demand for funds from their depositors. This can occur for a number of reasons, some bad and some not so bad. The offshore bank may have been found to be below its protective ratios and the government bank auditors or financial ministry may decide to shut the bank down in terms of money going out for a limited period of time to see if the bank can return their ratios quickly to an acceptable level. In the event the ratios return to an acceptable level the bank operation resumes normally and the depositors may not even know anything occurred.

Complaints – The way offshore bank failures generally start is with complaints to the licensing authority of the country where the bank is located stating that requests to withdraw funds are not being met by the bank. To document this the account holder generally retains legal counsel in the country where the offshore bank is located and files a formal demand for the funds to bank with a very short deadline. When this demand is not met the law firm will file a formal complaint to the offshore bank licensing authority who will generally conduct an investigation. They may have their own auditors or hire an independent team of auditors to go through the offshore bank records. They will look to see if there are any loans on the books that do not meet the guidelines for lending such as writing not collateralized loans is usually considered an offense. Loans to the principals of the bank are another red flag. Real estate acquisitions like mansions on the island where the offshore bank is located for the bank executives to live in is another red flag as well. Usually without loans the bank would not fail to meet its ratios. When these loans go bad and there is no collateral to go after then the banks get into trouble. The complaint process is possibly the only way the government is going to know their offshore bank is in trouble and by then it may be too late, but it may not be too late. Remember we are talking about offshore banks here, not regularly licensed regular banks which are audited and watched way more closely by the government and usually by a different government agency than the agency supervising offshore banks. We as a Panama Law firm do not introduce clients to offshore banks which should tell you something.

Loss of Correspondent Bank – Sometimes the offshore bank has just lost one or more of its correspondent banks and can not execute wire transfers until it replaces the correspondent with another correspondent bank which may take several weeks. When the complaints hit the government they will investigate, see that the funds are in place and allow the offshore bank a reasonable period of time to secure another correspondent bank, checking with them for progress reports. This is a not so bad problem that will only serve to scare and inconvenience the depositors.

Offshore Bank Receivership – This is a process whereby the government agency that licenses the offshore bank takes over the offshore bank to control its operation with an eye towards saving the bank. Sometimes they are successful and well sometimes not. Often a team of professionals from a large auditing or accounting firm are brought in. Receivership practices can frequently mean that a percentage of your funds will be unavailable for withdrawal for sometime. This is to prevent a run on the offshore bank which would for sure topple it and thus cost the depositors substantial losses. You may be only able to take out say 25% of your funds. What can often happen is the depositors lose faith and take as much money out as they can and avoid putting in any more money. This usually results in the offshore bank failing totally and being shut down.

Suing the Offshore Bank – What often happens in these offshore bank receivership scenarios is some depositors get scared and act jumpy and sue the bank. The lawsuits generally involve having the court encumber or tie up an amount equal to their deposit. To accomplish this the depositors generally have to resort to deceit or twisting the truth minimally, to make the court think they were not ordinary depositors or the amount in question consisted of funds to be handled in a special exceptional manner. The way the depositors are playing their hand is get the court to hold my money before the bank goes down completely and then my funds get mixed in with all the depositors in the fracas. If one files such a lawsuit they are generally excluded from filing claims as regular creditors (depositors) of the bank in the event of a liquidation and if they lose their lawsuit (an expected occurrence if based on fraud or deceit) they can lose all. Usually several depositors will file such lawsuits if there is any official action taken against the offshore bank and this could push the offshore bank into greater difficulty and if there is a bank liquidation it will be a most complex one with a lot of depositors funds eaten up in legal fees.

Offshore Bank Liquidation – This is of course the sword of gloom in the world of offshore banking. For things to reach this level the government had to have felt that the offshore bank is not salvageable. Generally a bunch of depositors filing lawsuits and jamming up the court system of some island jurisdiction is going to encourage the government there to liquidate the offshore bank in hopes of freeing up their courts. Imagine an offshore tax haven island court system. A small building with one to three courtrooms and maybe three or four judges. These courts hear divorce, child custody, personal injury as in auto accidents, bankruptcy, collection cases, resident disputes with building contractors, traffic court cases, and criminal cases. The court is there to enable the island jurisdiction to function as an independent governing state. It is not going to jam up its courts increasing the wait times for its citizens that are trying to deal with vital matters like child custody where one of the parents is an abusive drunk hurting the children. When the offshore bank gets put into liquidation generally the court cases can be disposed of quickly or even by summary dismissal. The government knows that the people behind these lawsuits are trying to get more money than they would if they just waited for the liquidation to proceed and are not amused by their litigious behavior.

The Offshore Bank Liquidation Process – So now the bank is in liquidation. What does this mean? Basically a liquidator will be appointed to determine what assets the bank has, liquidate what can be profitably liquidated and then see how much money is left. The remaining money will be divided up among the depositors fairly depending on how much they had on deposit in the offshore bank. They will get a percentage of their deposit back. What would be a good return in a liquidation, 75%. What would be a bad return well there was a liquidation in Latvia a few years ago where the depositors got 2%. What is a typical return? There is no number but it should be 33% to 60% unless the bank has been really mismanaged.

The Offshore Bank Liquidator – This is generally a person with an accounting, legal or banking background. They can understand the books of the offshore bank and the laws pertaining to the offshore bank and the liquidation. If the offshore bank had secured loans that went bad (payments not be made according to written loan documents) they will analyze the worth of going after the collateral. If there was a farm in Argentina posted as collateral for a three million dollar loan he may order an appraisal of the farm to see if it really worth that much. If the value of the farm is more than the legal expense of securing and liquidating the asset the liquidator should go ahead and liquidate it. This process may take a year or longer. If a loan was made to a trucking company in Belgium for a fleet of trucks the same liquidation process may occur. This sort of liquidation may take even two or three years depending on what type of liquidation processes may need to be followed. The borrower may file bankruptcy making the liquidation of the secured assets difficult and time consuming in some countries. The bankruptcy court might let the borrower continue making payments and keep the asset which can make for a rather problematic liquidation because now the loan must be sold to reduce it to a net value. Generally such a loan is going to go for a deep discount at best. The liquidator may have to sell the banks real estate, computers, office equipment and furniture, cars, boats, planes etc. All this is time consuming and the assets should be sold at an auction to keep things fair avoiding accusations of selling under the market for kickbacks. There is an inherent conflict of interest in the liquidation process. The bank liquidator generally gets paid handsomely. Think perhaps $150 to $300 an hour or maybe $10,000 to $30,000 per month. It is in his best interest to keep things going for as long as possible. The lawyers the bank liquidator uses are also under this same conflict of interest. How honest and upright these people are going to be is something for which there is no rule but there is generally a control element in the form of a creditors committee. In an honest liquidation the liquidator may elect to distribute the readily available assets the offshore bank has right away. These assets would be the actual cash deposits. This is an encouraging sign to the creditors. Money would usually be held back to allow the liquidation to proceed further allowing for legal expenses etc. Then as real estate and other assets are sold further distributions would be made. Not all liquidations are done so directly.

The Ugly Side of Offshore Bank Liquidations – Sometimes the offshore bank assets are deposited by the liquidator in another bank. Whether or not this is in an interest bearing account is always a good question. If there is $12,000,000 in cash in a bank the interest at 4% a year is a serious amount of money that will tempt people. Legal fees can be padded and kickbacks made to the liquidator from the law firm located on the island jurisdiction the offshore bank is in. Some of these islands where these offshore banks are have less than 100,000 people living in the country. You are foreigners and don’t expect such honest treatment in these tourist island jurisdictions. They may view these offshore bank liquidations as a feast for the locals courtesy of all the rich foreigners. Excessive travel can be run up by the liquidator. He can travel abroad going first class all the way even bringing the lawyers along, all on the clock. The liquidator can reach crooked settlements with people who posted collateral for loans with the offshore bank. Depositors of the offshore bank can file lawsuits for special treatment and the liquidator can settle with them in a crooked manner for an illegal kickback and then they get all their back while you only get a fraction back. Real estate owned by the offshore bank can be sold under market value for a kickback to a friend or relative of the liquidator. Same can be done with cars, computers etc. The liquidator can elect to chase assets not worth chasing to continue his high paying job some years longer than it should require. Remember offshore bank liquidations do not come along every day and the liquidator has no idea where his next job is going to come from. There is a check and balance usually in the bank liquidation process which is described below.

Offshore Bank Liquidation Creditors Committee – A creditor of the offshore bank is generally a depositor but it could be the electric company or the phone company. Generally, the employees are considered priority creditors when it comes to their wages and they get paid off first and fast. The depositor is owed money by the offshore bank based on their deposits, thus he or she is a creditor as far as the offshore bank liquidation is concerned. An offshore bank liquidation is sort of like a bankruptcy proceeding. In an offshore bank liquidation a creditors committee is formed which is something done in many bankruptcy proceedings. The creditors committee could possibly have been formed before the liquidator came into office and they appoint the liquidator with or without the approval of the court, rules vary some depending on the offshore jurisdiction involved. The creditors committee generally is voted into existence by the creditors, the creditors with the most dollars on deposit having the most votes is one way to look at it. All creditors are generally not treated equal. The creditors committee members are all on the same side and that side is interested in getting as much money back as they can. Decisions as to how to spend money chasing assets or potential assets are usually made by the liquidator but the creditors committee can exert control over the liquidator even replacing the liquidator in extreme circumstances. Some bank liquidations have taken place without creditor committees in place. These are generally less than above board liquidations.

Creditor Claims in Offshore Bank Liquidations – When the liquidator is in office the depositors are generally required to file claims. The claims process involves filing identity documents with the liquidator and identifying your account and how much money was in it. Offshore bank liquidations are conducted in open court and these claims wind up as exhibits in the public domain. What I am saying is bank secrecy is not in place once the bank is in liquidation. What one can expect to see is a fair number of depositors failing to file claims because of various reasons often relating to bank secrecy. Of course this means a greater recovery for those who do file the claims while the other folks walk away with a total loss of their funds by choice.

What to do if you are in an Offshore Bank Liquidation – If you are already involved in a bank liquidation you made a mistake and you are going to get hurt. How badly hurt is the question so you should be trying to mitigate your damages. If a creditors committee is forming try to get involved actively, even try to sit on the committee. If the liquidator has not yet been appointed do get involved in that process. Try to find ways to meet other depositors. Call lawyers on the island and ask them to represent a group of creditors collectively. Rest assured other depositors will be calling lawyers on the island and the lawyer can be a contact point to form a creditors committee. The idea may not occur to a lot of these lawyers so help them out a bit. If you can get a creditors committee in place and have it appoint a liquidator you will probably have a honest liquidation, probably. That having been said one must still leave room for the offshore bank itself having been intrinsically dishonest and the bank owners have since ran away with the funds. When you read the offshore bank liquidation horror stories you see that the money trail goes from country to country, bank to bank and then it ends up with a large cash withdrawal which is usually the end of the trail. The offshore jurisdiction may fail to ever prosecute them or file charges which of course make one wonder what was going on. So the key here is to get involved actively. It is real important to open communications with other creditors and get organized.

How to Avoid Being in Offshore Bank Liquidations – The answer is of course simple, avoid offshore banks. Stick to banks with full banking licenses that can conduct banking business with the residents of the country as well as with entities not located in the country.

Offshore Bank Alternatives – The best alternative to these tax haven island offshore jurisdictions is Panama. Panama is a solid offshore tax haven jurisdiction that does not tax offshore derived income and has no capital gains tax or tax on stock market gains. Panama has fully anonymous bearer share corporations where the owners are not recorded in any registry or database. Panama has anonymous foundations which are able to have generally non-freezable bank accounts. Panama has no tax treaties with any country so fishing expeditions are not going to happen. Panama has the tightest bank secrecy laws in the world and when coupled with an anonymous bearer share corporation it becomes the most secure and private structure one could have in the world today. Panama has 400,000 corporations registered there as well as many of the merchant marine vessels and cruise ships in the world. Panama has about 150 banks many of which are large multi-billion dollar international conglomerates, yet the banking operation in Panama is a separate bank corporation operating under Panama bank secrecy laws. Panama has not had a bank failure in over five years. Panama has had only a few bank failures in its history whereas Switzerland had over 15 bank failures during the years 1999 to 2000. Panama tightly regulates its banks. Every Panama Bank must submit monthly auditing reports to Panama’s Banking Superintendent, which is under direct supervision by the Banco Nacional de Panama (BNP), the National Bank of Panama. A list of prominent international banks in Panama includes: Citibank, HSBC, Dresdner Bank, Bank of Tokyo, Bank of Boston, Banco Nacional de Paris, International Commercial Bank of China, Societe Generale, Banque Sudameris, BBVA, Banco Uno, Banco General, PriBanco, Banco del Istmo, Global Bank, MultiCredit Bank, PanaBank, ABN Amro, Banco Aliado, Banco Continental, BancoLat, BIPAN, Lloyds TLB Bank, and the Bank of Nova Scotia. Many of the Panama banks own office building skyscrapers 40+ stories tall with their name on the building. These are not grocery store sized banks found in the island jurisdictions. The Panama Stock Exchange has an average trading volume of $900,000,000.

Panama is free of hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes, and earthquakes which is why the Panama Canal was built there. Panama uses the US dollar as their national currency. Panama has modern telephones, cell phones and internet being a country having been built by the Americans which left Panama in 2000. Panama has a treaty with the USA calling for the USA to protect the Panama Canal if it was threatened. This means the peace and security of the Republic of Panama is protected by the USA which could have jet fighters there in minutes. Panama is the new Switzerland of the world.