Fyffes, the Irish fruit importer and distribution group, said today that it has settled its legal action against DCC, S&L Investments, Jim Flavin and Lotus Green. The company said that under the terms of the settlement in the marathon case, Fyffes will receive €37.6m.

In a separate announcement, DCC said that the total amount payable to Fyffes and the counterparties in the case - including interests and costs - is €41m.

The company said this is in line with its estimate when it made an exceptional charge of €50m for these claims.

In July, the Supreme Court found that DCC had inside information on Fyffes when it sold its stake in the fruit and vegetable distributor for €106m in early 2000. The court overturned a High Court decision that it did not.

The Supreme Court found that the High Court made an error in concluding that trading reports in the possession of DCC, the multi-business group, were not price sensitive.

The ruling cleared the way for Fyffes to bring its case back to the High Court.

Fyffes took legal action after DCC sold its stake in Fyffes a month before a March 2000 profit warning. DCC received €106 million for its Fyffes shares, yielding a €85 million profit. The case ran for 87 days in the High Court in 2005.

Fyffes lost the original action in 2005 when Ms Justice Mary Laffoy ruled that DCC chief executive Jim Flavin was not in possession of price sensitive information about Fyffes at the time of the share sales. She found, however, Flavin who was a director of Fyffes at the time, had controlled the deals..

In the High Court, DCC had claimed that Flavin had not dealt in the shares directly because a subsidiary had handled the sale of the shares.

In the Supreme Court, four rulings were delivered, all in agreement. In her ruling presiding judge Ms Justice Susan Denham said that the facts of the case - as established in the High Court and not subject to appeal - were that Jim Flavin was director of DCC and handled the sale of the Fyffes share in February 2000.

Flavin also held a position as a director in Fyffes, which gave him access to information contained in Fyffes trading reports for November and December 1999. This information was 'generally unavailable' and the High Court found that it was 'very bad news for Fyffes', her ruling stated.

Ms Justice Denham said that 'the core issue was whether is whether the information in the November and December 1999 trading reports was price sensitive', in other words, that it 'would be likely materially to affect the price of the shares if it were generally available'.

Once that information was made available to the markets in the form of a  profit warning, issued on March 20th, there was an 'immediate drop' in Fyffes' share price.

Ms Justice Denham said that it was 'an inevitable conclusion that the information was price sensitive'.