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NICOSIA, Aug. 23-- EU member-states Bulgaria and Cyprus are at loggerheads over the failure of an insurance company based on the eastern Mediterranean island and on who is to foot the bill for insurance claims totaling 43.5 million euros, Cypriot media reported on Thursday. Olympic Insurance, which was put in liquidation both in Bulgaria and in Cyprus, is facing 9,500 claims in Bulgaria amounting to 28.5 million euros and 2,500 claims in Cyprus amounting to 15 million euros. Bulgarian authorities have already asked Cyprus to foot the bill for the money Olympic owes to its citizens. Cypriot Financial Ombudsman Pavlos Ioannou said on Thursday that he received a letter from a Bulgarian official requesting Cyprus to cover the damages to Bulgarian claimants. He said he is considering the request taking into consideration Cypriot legislation. Olympic Insurance was based in Cyprus but most of its business was done in Bulgaria, where it had 9 percent of the market with 200,000 insured clients against damage to third parties. Both they and the Cypriot clients of the company had to buy new road insurance. English language newspaper Cyprus mail published documents which it said proved that the failure of the company could have been avoided had the Cypriot supervisor of insurance companies was more diligent and spotted warnings about its owners shadowy activities. It said that the owner of Olympic's Luxembourg based parent company, a Spanish citizen, was named in a June 2017 statement issued by Spain's Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), which supervises the country's financial markets. | 
