million in what is set to be the Island's biggest-ever court payout.

The two men -- both ex-directors of Island-based fibre- optic cable giants Flag Limited -- won the massive awards in share options in the firm.

Bermuda's Supreme Court found Nicolas Reda and Jamal Abdul-Jalil were manoeuvred out of their top jobs with the company early in a bid to avoid fulfilling the stock option deal following a take-over.

And Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller found that the two were not legally sacked until their official terms had expired -- leaving them free to claim the millions in stock.

Last night lawyer Andrew Martin, who appeared for Mr. Reda and Mr. Abdul-Jalil with Saul Froomkin QC, said: "It's potentially the biggest recorded.'' But Mr. Martin added that Flag had since been taken over by one its own subsidiaries and the stock awards were made as part of the two's contracts before shares were publicly traded.

He said: "I say that with two small caveats. One is that I don't think there is an easy way of totalling up, but I don't think anyone is aware of a judgment yet which is potentially as big.

"But the stock options, depending on how you slice and dice it, could be worth between $25 and $30 million each.'' Mr. Martin added: "There are other arguments which will be brought to say they aren't worth as much as that, but it's difficult to know how to do that because the prices are quoted.'' And he said: "The court found that Flag engineered the whole situation to avoid having to fulfil its contractual obligations.

"The court said it would be wrong to let the plaintiff rely on breaking promises to the defendants to allow them to escape the consequences.

"The judge found the way in which the defendants were terminated was part of a scheme which was designed to try and keep them out of their share option entitlements.'' to be nearly $1 million in unpaid salary -- were fired after a takeover of Flag by an arm of the firm, Flag Telecommunications Ltd. -- in which the two former directors were involved.

Mr. Martin said: "Once it was done, they were summarily removed and it was against that background they claimed they were entitled to various things -- one of them was the stock options.'' US citizen Mr. Reda and Jordanian Mr. Abdul-Jalil were both hired as top executives by Flag in July, 1995 until July, 1998.

But in March 1998, they were both sacked without cause. Flag claimed the two had signed waiver letters which the firm argued gave them the right to fire the pair without giving reasons.

The written findings of Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller, penned in March, were released last week.

Both Mr. Reda and Mr. Abdul-Jalil have now returned to their respective countries. It is understood Flag will take the case to the Court of Appeal.

station on, the emergency radio wasn't on and there was no way of finding out what could have caused this problem.'' A Police spokesman said the emergency station was only activated during national disasters or emergencies such as hurricanes.

She said: "It was a major power outage not a national emergency.'' Belco spokeswoman Robin Sidders said she understood the frustration of customers trying to get through to the Belco switchboard but she explained the phone system went into overload.

She said: "We received an number of calls and handled some but it's unfortunate that we didn't have enough lines coming in. We couldn't handle that number of calls.

"We are looking into ways we can solve that and other ways we can provide information to our customers if this situation occurs in the future.'' She said Belco had yet to find out why parts in the switchboard had developed a fault which caused Sunday night's power cut.

property was without power.

"Someone reported seeing a flash come from a manhole at the same time as the lightning strike, but we are looking into this.'' Meanwhile repairs are underway to replace the damaged section of underground cable.

Lightning left some Smith's residents without power for an hour after a bolt struck a transformer at around 9 a.m.

The blackout was contained to Town Hill Road and affected about 20 homes.

Power was returned by 10 a.m.