has split the Thyssen clan. The family patriarch is trying to regain control of a trust he set up through a Bermuda law firm. Ahmed ElAmin reports Behind the closed doors of the Anglican Cathedral Hall on Church Street, lawyers for one of the world's wealthiest families have hunkered down to do battle over a $2.8 billion inheritance.

International art collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, 77, is fighting to change the terms of a trust set up in Bermuda to hold the fortunes of the Thyssen clan. He is taking eldest son Georg Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and the trustees of family holding company Continuity Trust to Supreme Court in an attempt to set the terms of the trust aside.

The week-long pre-trial hearing in the cramped quarters of the hall is scheduled to conclude tomorrow before newly arrived Puisne Judge Denis Mitchell.

The current hearings involving top lawyers from London and Bermuda are merely a foreshadowing of a six-month court dispute scheduled to begin in mid-April.

Finding a venue for the court case has also become an issue in the hearings See related story: Page 27 .

Witnesses, including possibly Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, are scheduled to testify during the civil action.

The saga involves a trust which is the holding entity of the sprawling Thyssen Bornemisza conglomerate with interests in ships, glass, plastics, car parts, trading companies, agricultural machinery and information systems.

In the civil case family patriarch Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza is accusing his son of prejudicing the interests of his four other children. He is attempting to win back control of the trust which he set up in 1983 through Bermuda law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman.

The baron was entitled to annuity payments from the trust. He is alleging he was misled over the terms of the trust and is seeking to set aside the trust on the grounds of undue influence, the abuse of confidence and misrepresentation.

According to a story in The European newspaper, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza sent a letter to his other children stating that he regretted handing control of the family empire over to his 48-year-old son, known as "Heini''.

"I want you to know that it remains my intention that each of my children should obtain his or her proper share of my assets upon my death,'' the newspaper quoted him as writing. "At present Heini junior has manoeuvred himself into a position where, in the absence of action on my part, he would get far too much.'' The newspaper also noted the comments of the baron's fifth wife, former Spanish beauty queen Carmen Cervera as indicating a deep family rift over the fortune.

"The war has started,'' she is quoted as saying. "This is going to be the court case of the century. This goes to the heart of one of Europe's most important families.'' The baron was also quoted in The Sunday Telegraph as saying he regretted trusting his son with the family's wealth.

"I wouldn't advise anyone to do what I did,'' he is quoted as saying. "You should never give out legacies before you are dead.'' Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, who is a citizen of Switzerland, was once considered the owner of the world's second-greatest private art collection after that of Queen Elizabeth. He deeded his immense art collection to Spain's specially constructed Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in 1993.

Dynasty divided over huge inheritance That move was initially opposed by some of the children who want the collection to stay in the family's Swiss home at Lugano. According to The European, each child would receive a tenth of the inheritance while wife Carmen Cervera would receive half under Swiss law.

The family's wealth stems from the baron's grandfather, August, who died in 1926. The grandfather's death led to a split between his two sons Fritz and Heinrich.

Fritz took over the heavy industry and mining operations which later became the Thyssen-Krupp group. Heinrich, the father of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, was given the shipping and banking operations.

The baron and his three brothers and sisters went to Switzerland's Supreme Court in a fight over the family's art collection when Heinrich died.

The pictures were eventually distributed among the siblings and the baron eventually bought most of them back, according to the newspaper.

Now the family's modern saga over inheritance is due to be played out in Bermuda's courts this summer.