BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - The UK government has stepped in to provide insurance coverage for the animal testing company Huntingdon Life Sciences plc, following a long-running and intimidating campaign to force the insurance broker, Marsh, and its U.S. parent, Marsh & McLennan, to stop insuring the company.

The insurance started in December with immediate effect. The government previously provided insurance for commercial companies only if they faced a terrorist risk. In 2001, the government agreed to provide HLS with a banking facility after intimidation against the Royal Bank of Scotland forced the bank to withdraw its services.

The animal rights group, Stop Huntingdon Life Sciences (SHAC), claimed a "massive victory," saying in a press release, "HLS cannot find a single insurance company or broker worldwide to provide them with insurance cover, and without the UK government's intervention would have been forced to close."

Following the UK government's announcement, SHAC published on its website a list of actions it has taken against Marsh since it started targeting the broker in February 2002. They include demonstrations at Marsh offices, and at the homes of directors in the UK, U.S., Germany, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and Portugal.

The website lists 108 actions against Marsh, which it claims are about one-third of the total carried out, and said, "We are sending out a message to HLS's customers, directors and senior scientists: You are next in the firing line."

HLS is the largest contract animal testing laboratory in Europe, and many biotechnology companies rely on its services.

A long-running campaign of intimidation by SHAC has forced bankers, brokers and customers to sever their links with HLS. In January 2001, when UK backers were forced to withdraw support, Stephens Group Inc., of Little Rock, Ark, stepped in to rescue the company. A year later, Stephens, too, was forced to sell all its HLS stock and debt investments, after becoming the target of SHAC U.S. Staff were subjected to intimidating home visits from protesters and the New York home of the bank's president, Warren Stephens, was vandalized.

HLS was also forced to delist from the London Stock Exchange, moving its headquarters to East Millstone, N.J., at the beginning of 2002. A new U.S. corporate legal structure, Life Sciences Research Inc., was created to exchange shares with HLS, and the new entity listed on Nasdaq in January 2002.

At the BIO 2002 meeting in Toronto in June, Frankie Trull, president of the U.S. Foundation for Biomedical Research, the main body defending animal research in the U.S., said almost all of the most violent and disruptive animal rights activism in the U.S. has been imported from the UK.