A decade long battle for control of the Island's only cable television company looks set to be resolved next month.

Shareholders will meet on December 9 to discuss a deal worked out between the two major share holding blocs, Bermuda Telephone Company and the US-based McDonald Group.

After an October 1997 decision by Bermuda's highest court of appeal, the Privy Council in London, the two groups have decided to combine their shares into one company Bermuda Cablevision Holdings.

The new company will control an 80-percent block of Cablevision shares with the other 20 percent held by smaller individual shareholders.

Claim and counter-claim have reverberated in the courts and business circles since it was revealed two American men, Allan and Bill McDonald, owned 28 percent of the company's stock.

The Privy Council later ruled the men controlled the business in breach of the Island's 60/40 rule of the Companies Act of 1981 which decrees that local companies must be controlled by locals.

Despite their minority shares, the McDonalds controlled the board of directors through a casting vote and controlled general meetings through a special resolution procedure.

A special consulting agreement gave the McDonalds 60 percent of the company's profits.

All of that will now end, with the approval of the shareholding body.

David Lines, a director of Colica Trust Company which brought the lawsuit on behalf of BTC, said last night: "I'm very happy to say that it has all been settled.

"It will be of great benefit for the community but also for the shareholders.'' A clause in the agreement allows for the creation of a charitable trust controlling 20 percent of Cablevision Holdings.

And $8.1 million held in trust on a judge's orders for the McDonald Group until there was a resolution can now be released to Bill McDonald. Allan McDonald died in 1993.

In 1987, the McDonald brothers invested about $8 million in the struggling 15-year-old company, allowing it the final push to begin erecting the Island-wide cabling system.

"We have restructured the company to take it into compliance which was agreed to today by the courts,'' Mr. Lines said. "There will not be any further special classes of shares. All will have an equal value.'' He added: "It was a very complicated matter. All the parties are looking very happily to working together in the future.'' BUSINESS BUC