which reveal the desperate fight for survival facing a new cheap phone service.

The papers show that giant communications firm Cable & Wireless, which provides Bermuda's overseas phone links, has a powerful legal weapon against the new service.

That weapon is a Government law giving the company exclusive rights over international calls.

Global Access Bermuda, which signed up hundreds of customers seeking cut-price overseas calls, took C&W to court after it blocked GAB calls.

Supreme Court judge the Hon. Mr. Justice Ground ruled the new service was illegal because it did not have a Government licence.

After his July 2 ruling, GAB began applying for a licence.

It is believed the Telecommunications Commission will have to decide whether the GAB service would breach C&W's own exclusive licence.

Court officials have declined to provide a copy of Mr. Justice Ground's judgement because the case was heard behind closed doors.

But the Gazette now has a copy, revealing the apparent odds stacked against GAB getting a licence.

The judge said C&W had made a "substantial investment'' in respect of their local service.

"They enjoy a special status in Bermuda, conferred by licence, whereby they enjoy a monopoly of overseas telecommunications, subject to certain exemptions and subject to a statutory scheme of control.'' C&W's licence had been granted in a way which was "a little odd'', he said.

But the company held "an exclusive licence granted under the authority of statute which, if nothing else, is enforceable against the grantor to prevent him granting other licences in contravention of it''.

GAB boss Mr. Michael Leverock was seeking to be a phone call "carrier'', the judge decided.

If Mr. Leverock was acting as a carrier he was infringing C&W's exclusive rights under the licence.

C&W must be entitled to regulate the provision of its services to prevent that, Mr. Justice Ground said.

He added that his conclusions "seem to me to be beyond doubt, and to involve no difficult or complex questions of law''.

GAB and C&W declined to comment on the latest twist to the controversy.