The landmark €85m civil action being taken by Fyffes against DCC and its chief executive Jim Flavin will continue on Tuesday when David McCann, the chief executive of Fyffes, will resume giving evidence.

According to the Sunday Times, he is expected to reiterate the Fyffes line that bananas, rather than internet operations, were the mainstay of the business in early 2000 when there was a spectacular rise and then fall in the firm’s share price which Flavin and DCC are alleged to have exploited through insider dealing.

Fyffes shares increased in value from €1.60 at the beginning of December 1999 to €3.98 on February 14 the following year and DCC has claimed it was inundated with bids from eager institutions and happy to hit the exit button.

Flavin, who is accused of insider dealing, has maintained that Fyffes’ emphasis on the future importance of Worldoffruit.com, the internet fruit exchange it launched in 1999, had underpinned the market rally and had turned the company into a “quasi dotcom stock”.

“The market was aware Fyffes was planning a separate flotation for Worldoffruit.com in 2000 which was expected to be a significant shareholder value-enhancing event for Fyffes,” claimed DCC.

Fyffes view, however, is diametrically opposed, the company having claimed it would be “contrary to intuition and common sense that the core business suddenly became irrelevant”.

McCann told the court that bananas had accounted for about 27 per cent of sales in 1998 but for 75 per of profits. Most of the profits were generated in the UK, where Fyffes had a poor year in 1999, he said. Mccann, claims the Sunday Times article, will contend “investors would not have had this information but that Flavin undoubtedly did”.

Fyffes documents presented to the court said: “There is nothing in the February/March 2000 period that contains any turning point in the market participants’ optimism about Worldoffruit.com, and any comments by analysts indicate that the participants’ enthusiasm for Worldoffruit.com extended up and beyond the profit warning (of March 20).”

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