Business Opinion/John McManus:To paraphrase Gerry Adams, the Fyffes/ DCC insider trading case has not gone away you know. Despite the collective amnesia that has gripped many, the inescapable reality is that the events ran too deep into the upper echelons of Irish business to be brushed under the carpet.

The danger must be that the longer the various individuals and institutions try to avoid facing up to the consequences, the greater the damage that will be done to them and to the perception of Irish business culture.

AIB has just had a taste of this, with the revelation in this newspaper over the weekend by Arthur Beesley that the bank's investment arm failed to protect its position as a counter-party to the litigation.

Like a number of other institutions that bought the shares at the centre of the case, AIB Investment Managers instigated an action against DCC on the coat-tails of Fyffes and ahead of the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Along with the other investment houses, AIB Investment Managers was ensuring that it could sue for damages if the case being taken by Fyffes was successful.

Following Fyffes's successful Supreme Court appeal, these actions will now proceed.

But it has now emerged that AIB's investment arm allowed its action to lapse and cannot sue DCC on this basis.

Moreover, it has transpired that AIB Investment Managers consciously took the decision to allow the case to lapse. Bank sources cite the complex legal nature of the case as the reason why it chose not to proceed with what on face value was its fiduciary duty to shareholders and clients.

AIB's actions have to be seen in the context of what emerged in the course of the Fyffes/DCC case. One of the most alarming aspects was the extent to which DCC was able to mobilise some of the State's leading lawyers, accountants, corporate financiers and their respective firms to lobby on its behalf to try to head off a prospective criminal prosecution and the civil case taken by Fyffes.

The court heard that reports prepared by DCC were circulated as part of this process and the recipients included an unnamed bank, a subsidiary of which was taking counter-party proceedings against DCC.

AIB is staying quiet at present, but it is hard to see how it can with any credibility refuse to address the question as to whether it was the unnamed institution.

If it transpires that AIB was the bank in question, then it will have to deal with the acute embarrassment that its chief executive at the time, Michael Buckley, is now the senior non- executive director at DCC, having joined shortly after stepping down from AIB.

Buckley led the board in its unanimous endorsement of DCC's chief executive, Jim Flavin, within hours of the Supreme Court finding that he had been insider dealing when he organised the sale of DCC's shares in Fyffes in 2000.

The less-than-comfortable position in which AIB now finds itself underlines the point that it is naive to believe that, when the Supreme Court finds that one of the State's leading executives and his company committed insider trading, we can just draw a line in the sand and move on, as if it was not of any consequence.

There is no doubt that many want to do so, for a variety of reasons, not least respect and sympathy for Flavin, who has created more jobs and put more money in shareholders' pockets than most.

But no matter how much sympathy one might have for Flavin, those involved must face up to the consequences.

The DCC board's hasty endorsement of Flavin after the Supreme Court decision and the low profile adopted since then has got the company through the summer, helped by the weak-kneed response of the body that should have held the company to account in the first instance, the Irish Association of Investment Managers.

But nobody can seriously believe that the matter is now closed. Stories such as the one that embarrassed AIB this weekend will continue to tumble out of the woodwork.

Court cases are pending against DCC from Eagle Star, Hibernian, Putnam Asset Management and Founders Asset Management, and an investigation by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement is hanging over the company's head.

DCC can also look forward to its annual general meetings and other public events being dominated by the fallout from the events of eight years ago, particularly when it starts writing cheques to Fyffes and the other counter-parties.

It's not over and it's hard to see how it will be over until Flavin and DCC pay the price of the Supreme Court's judgment.