Senior executives from Fyffes conducted presentations to potential investors in Europe and the US at around the time it is now saying Mr Jim Flavin had price-sensitive information, the High Court was told.
The presentations by the Fyffes executives led to "unprecedented interest" in the Fyffes shares among international institutional investors at a time when, the company is now saying, the directors of Fyffes were in possession of price-sensitive information, DCC said in documentation read out to the court.
The information the directors had concerned Fyffes' trading performance.
DCC, its chief executive, Mr Flavin, and two subsidiaries of DCC are being sued by Fyffes. Fyffes is alleging that Mr Flavin, a non-executive director of Fyffes at the time, was in possession of price-sensitive information when shares sales worth €106 million were conducted by DCC or one of its subsidiaries in February 2000.
Mr Paul Gallagher SC, continuing his opening statement, read out correspondence from DCC solicitors William Fry to Fyffes solicitors Arthur Cox in December 2001.
DCC said actions by Fyffes at around the time of the 2000 sale were inconsistent with the view Fyffes had formed by late 2001 that all Fyffes directors had price-sensitive information at the time of the sale.
DCC said that, if what was now being alleged was true, it would be difficult to avoid the view that Fyffes had misled the market.
DCC said it was its view that Fyffes' Worldoffruit.com project was the main driver of the unprecedented interest in Fyffes shares in early 2000. "Fyffes was a dotcom momentum stock."
In a later letter to the Irish Stock Exchange, also read out by Mr Gallagher, DCC said the presentations by Fyffes to potential investors were the cause of the unprecedented interest in Fyffes shares. It was this interest, on the part of international institutions, which prompted brokers, hoping for commissions, to seek to arrange deals involving DCC's shareholding in Fyffes, the court heard.
DCC, in its letter to the exchange, said the focus of the presentations was on the Worldoffruit.com project.
The Fyffes share price went from €1.60 on December 1st, 1999, to €3.98 on February 14th, 2000. Mr Neil McCann of Fyffes believed Worldoffruit might change the way bananas were traded in the world and the market expected the venture to be floated, the court heard.
During February 2000, the general sense of euphoria concerning dotcom ventures was still there. On March 10th, 2000, the Nasdaq peaked.
Mr Gallagher said that experts to be called by Fyffes will say that there is no gainsaying the simple fact that a significant percentage of the value of Fyffes in February 2000 was due to its core business. He said Fyffes will also say that the enthusiasm among analysts for the Worldoffruit venture went up to and beyond the trading statement made by Fyffes on March 20th, 2000.
