almost five times the amount he owes them.

Mr. Hall has applied for a bankruptcy notice issued against him earlier this month to be set aside, alleging that the bank actually owes him money, not the other way around.

He has made the application on the grounds that he is the beneficial owner of 50,000 shares in Bermuda Cablevision, which the bank has control over.

That Mr. Hall is owed the shares is admitted by Cablevision president Mr.

Gavin Wilson.

"He is owed them for legal work he did in the early stages of Cablevision in the late 1970s and early 1980s,'' Mr. Wilson said last night.

The shares are thought to have a current value of $5 each, which would mean Mr. Hall is owed $250,000.

But they could be worth at least double that sum if a controversial agreement sending most of Cablevision's profits abroad is found to be illegal when it comes to court, probably next year.

Mr. Hall, shadow environment minister for the PLP, is also seeking special damages for an alleged conspiracy by the bank to "injure me in my business and political reputation''.

He claims that the bank has treated him more harshly than other borrowers in calling in his outstanding loan of $110,000.

The bank took the action because it would no longer accept lawyer Mr. Charles Vaucrosson -- who has financial problems of his own -- as a guarantor of Mr.

Hall's loan.

But Mr. Hall claims that when a family friend offered last year to put up land security worth several hundred thousand dollars to secure the loan, the bank rejected it without giving a reason.

Last night, Bank of Butterfield chairman Sir David Gibbons dismissed the conspiracy theory as "absolute nonsense''.

"I certainly have no knowledge of the bank conspiring against him,'' he said.

In a separate move, the Supreme Court yesterday granted Mr. Hall an injunction preventing the Bank of Butterfield from transferring, selling or voting on the 66.7 percent of Cablevision's shares it holds as "mortgagee in possession''.

The injunction seems likely to scupper an option to buy a substantial stake in Cablevision which investment firm First Bermuda Securities must exercise by December 31, 1992. Full story -- see the Business Section.

Mr. Julian Hall.