Four Courts, Dublin.

The Irish Association of Investment Managers on Thursday said it is not appropriate for Jim Flavin to continue in his role as executive chairman of Irish public company DCC. The IAIM represents the large institutional shareholders in public companies and its statement, is effectively a call for Flavin to resign.

DCC's board said on Tuesday that the true import of the High Court and Supreme Court judgments in respect of the Fyffes insider trading case, has not always been accurately reflected in the media. Accordingly, the Directors decided to issue a statement by way of Stock Exchange announcement, in advance of its publication in the Annual Report (see link below).

In the aftermath of the IAIM  statement, it is now clear that the board seriously undermined its credibility on Tuesday by issuing a lawyer produced selective parsing of the High Court and Supreme Court judgments - with the primacy of the Supreme Court conveniently ignored.

The Supreme Court found that DCC and Flavin 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 Irish Association of Investment Managers, represents 12 members - the top Irish financial service companies, who manage funds worth about €260 billion.

DCC agreed in April to pay Fyffes and investors €41 million to settle the dispute over the trades in Fyffes shares in 2000. Flavin was a Fyffes director at the time and DCC made an €85 million profit on the sale - the profit was made six weeks before Fyffes issued a profit warning.

Flavin, 65, is a former head of the venture capital unit of AIB and he founded DCC in 1976. He was chief executive until 2007 when he became executive chairman for a three- year ``transition period'' with responsibility for strategy development. On Monday he said that it was his intention to remain at DCC until 2010.