When the Thyssen court battle kicked off in court in October, 1999, the public gallery in the refurbished Salvation Army hall was packed.

It was filled with international media, nosey local lawyers and the general public. Adding to the carnival atmosphere was the wife of a lawyer, wearing, of all things, a hat. They were all there to see the opening of what was has been dubbed the "trial of the century".

What everyone was hoping to see was mud-slinging between the mega-rich that is hardly ever seen in public.

What was at stake was a family fortune worth $2.7 billion and an art collection that is rivalled only by that of the Queen of England, a fight between father and son spurred on by an alleged evil money-grabbing step mother.

The Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, now 81, was suing his eldest son Georg, now 51, for control of a family fortune worth $2.7 billion.

Heini Senior, as the Baron is known, signed over the family business (and fortune) to a continuity trust created in 1983 which immediately made his son Georg, or Heini Junior, the principal beneficiary.

The father went to the Supreme Court in Bermuda, where the trust was formed, claiming in court the trust and his son owed him $232 million in arrears with inflation and loss of value and wanted to wrest control of the empire back.

The gallery was poised for a fight with top lawyers grilling European aristocracy to within inches of their pampered lives. What everyone got was a trial of mind-numbing minutiae.

Discourses on translations of documents that were then considered to be irrelevant lasted days. The finer points of Swiss inheritance law was discussed ad infinitum. Watching paint dry would have been welcome relief to those stuck in the gallery.

Quickly the court emptied of everyone but the well paid lawyers. First the general public left, then the international media discovered they could not write any more stories on lawyers getting rich in the sun of Bermuda and were hauled back home from their paid holiday.

Just The Royal Gazette was left for weeks on end. Then an executive decision was made that even the Island's daily could not eke any more out of the proceedings and skipped court, much to the relief of the reporting staff, who still kept occasional tabs on the proceedings.

The lawyers were the only ones left standing. One junior lawyer was spotted writing ARTR on the top of his pad every day. When asked what it meant, he said: "Always remember the refresher". The refresher is a fee paid for every day in court, and that sums up what happened in Supreme Court Number Four for nearly two years.

The opening statements by the Baron's head lawyer Michael Crystal QC, one of London's leading legal names, took 15 months to complete in what must be the most lengthy opening in the history of legal arguments.

Even before the trial started in October 1999 there had been two years of legal wrangles over what evidence could and could not be submitted.

The trial had been stopped for legal clarifications for over six months before Christmas 2000, and resumed in January 2001, when Crystal finally finished his opening remarks.

There were 121,959 documents entered into evidence and there is an average of 600 pages of transcripts from the case each week, pondered over by dozens of lawyers from each side.

And then suddenly, out of no where, just as Georg's lawyers got their day in court, something happened. Word was put out for the Press to come to court. The jesters once again had an audience, but this time, the joker was not the lawyers, but the judge.

Presiding judge, Dennis Mitchell, quit over a pay row - a year and a half into the case, leaving the Attorney General and Governor's office to find a replacement judge for the complex legal wrangle.

The lawyers, being lawyers, threatened to sue everyone involved, from Premier Jennifer Smith to the then Governor Thorold Masefield to the Attorney General and scrabbling began to find a new judge.

An announcement about a new judge was expected to be made in June, 2001, but there was no official statement about who would be appointed as the months rolled by.

There was speculation when Justice Mitchell quit that the trial would have to restart or move to London.

But at the beginning of June it was believed a top London judge, Sir Gavin Lightman, was about to take over the trial and hear the remaining case in Bermuda.

At the time it was believed he was poised to sign contracts in June but this never happened.

Justice Lightman was believed to be partly the driving force behind the deal to settle what would without a doubt be a lengthy battle once it resumed as both sides were bound to appeal any decision.

But the Governor and the Attorney General's office had been looking for a replacement when rumours in legal circles said there was a deal on the table in London. None of the lawyers would ever talk publicly about the deal because they were sworn to secrecy and could jeopardise any deal by tongue wagging.

The end appeared to be nigh August a writ was filed by the Favorita Trustees Ltd., one of the main trusts involved in the court case. It was believed that the trustees of the family fortune were seeking court approval which would be needed to accept any settlement.

Shortly after this it was learned the Governor's office in Bermuda has stopped looking for a replacement judge for the protracted legal battle, and all signs of the London lawyers began to disappear from the Island.

And while Government House would not comment on the matter, sources close to the Governor said that the search had been halted while the different sides of the feuding family are seeking a settlement with meetings between Zurich and London taking place during the summer.

And when the Baron became seriously ill in January and was said to be on his death bed in a hospital near Barcelona, his children flew in, one by one to see him and the family rifts began to heal.

During the past week there has been a series of meetings behind closed doors with all sides involved, and late yesterday the family put on a united front.

The Baron was given an annuity of an undisclosed amount and his son kept the business. The art collection gets to stay in Madrid, the reporters finally have something to write about and the lawyers get to go home with enough money to retire on.

And now the Thyssen family are kissing and making up, healing the wounds of years of legal battles. The Baron said in a statement: "The priority for the family today is to build on its many achievements and to support the contributions of its members to lasting success."