The former chief executive of Cologne Re in Dublin, John Houldsworth, is to be sentenced on conspiracy charges in Connecticut, the home state of Cologne Re's parent company.

Mr Houldsworth, who was due to be sentenced in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday, follows on from the case of General Re chief executive, Ronald Ferguson, who also had his case transferred to Connecticut, which is generally more sympathetic to white collar crime than Virginia.

Judge Claude Hilton, a judge in the US district court in Virginia, said that the crime was primarily committed in Connecticut.

Thomas Carson, a spokesperson for the US attorney's office in New Haven, Connecticut, said yesterday that it may be some time before Mr Houldsworth is sentenced as he is expected to be a witness in the case of Ronald Ferguson, the former General Re chief executive, who successfully applied earlier this year to have his case moved to Connecticut.

Both men were indicted for General Re's alleged involvement in falsely boosting the reserves of its client, the insurance giant American International Group (AIG).

Mr Houldsworth, who worked at Dublin's International Financial Services Centre, has admitted that he conspired with others to mis-state some of AIG's financial statements through a complex series of transactions routed through the Dublin office.

He has already been barred from serving as a director of a US company.

The charges relate to two financial reinsurance contracts in 2000 and 2001 between AIG and General Re, which is part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway group.

A federal judge in Alexandria ruled last February that the Ferguson trial should be moved to Connecticut, saying that most of alleged "overt acts" of conspiracy in the case occurred in Connecticut, Dublin and New York and not in Virginia.

Earlier this week, John Byrne, a former senior employee of Cologne Re, was banned from working as a reinsurance specialist in the UK and Australia, after a co-ordinated clampdown by regulators around the world.