A chartered accountant and chairman of the audit committee of the Department of Agriculture and Food has told the Dublin’s High Court that DCC chief executive Jim Flavin possessed "insider information" at the time of the controversial €106 million sale of the DCC stake in Fyffes in February 2000, reported the Irish Times.

The information in question was circulated to Fyffes directors in January 2000 in the form of trading reports for November and December 1999, and a forecast for January 2000, John Donnelly said.

Those documents showed the trading performance for the first three months of the fiscal year 2000 (beginning November 1999) looked "pretty frightful" and contained "nothing but bad news" for Fyffes. He said the information was confidential and price sensitive.

Donnelly said if the information was made public, it would have had an adverse effect on the Fyffes share price.

Directors in possession of such information would not have been free to deal in Fyffes shares, he added. Mr Donnelly also claimed Mr Flavin was active in negotiating the disposal of the DCC stake in Fyffes in February 2000.

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