DCC chief executive Jim Flavin yesterday strongly denied involvement in any insider trading and said that to believe the Fyffes' claim, one would have to believe that he was "either a fool as well as a crook".

He said that the situation which had arisen was one which "in our wildest dreams, five or six years ago, we could never have envisaged that we would end up in this sort of situation."

Mr Flavin added that DCC believed that all that had happened was grossly unfair on DCC and on him personally.

Yesterday was the 47th day of the proceedings taken by Fyffes, alleging insider dealing in relation to the sale of the DCC stake in Fyffes in February 2000.

DCC, Mr Flavin and two DCC subsidiaries - S&L Investments Ltd and Lotus Green - deny the claims and plead that the share sales were properly carried out by Lotus Green. Under cross-examination by Paul Gallagher SC for Fyffes, Mr Flavin said: "How can anyone, how can the plaintiffs here begin to think that I would deliberately go out and engage or seek to engage in some insider trading in the knowledge that a profit warning - their alleged view - if you like, that a profit warning was going to be made eight weeks later".

Mr Flavin said that he would admit to being "zealous" to the interests of DCC, but he was not "zealous" to the point of deliberately engaging in something which he believed to be insider trading and for which he personally had no profit.

The proposition of Fyffes made no sense, he added.

"You would have to believe that I am either a fool as well as a crook. How could one contemplate taking the steps that the plaintiffs alleged for the benefit of no profit. I would want to be a complete zealot in the interests of DCC. I am not that much of zealot," he told the judge.

Counsel for Fyffes questioned Mr Flavin regarding the formation of Dutch resident DCC subsidiary Lotus Green. Mr Flavin was asked if he had been involved in the detail of that formation.

Mr Flavin said that was not correct. His recollection was that he got the same information as every other director of DCC got on the matter. They were a complex group and he had no recall of any involvement other than the proposal coming up - and he would have been aware of it being brought before him and before the board.

Paul Gallagher SC for Fyffes asked Mr Flavin questions to do with tax advice received from tax advisers to DCC regarding the transfer of control over DCC's shareholding in Fyffes to Lotus Green, as part of a tax strategy.

The minutes of a DCC board meeting at the time recorded the intergroup transfer of the beneficial ownership of the shareholding. The minutes noted that the board was told that the move was being implemented for restructuring purposes.

Mr Gallagher: "But we know for a fact that it was for tax purposes?"

Mr Flavin: "That is correct, judge."

Mr Flavin said he was sure the minutes recording resolutions in relation to the transfer "would have had the input of tax advisers as well".

Mr Gallagher: "So, because it had the input of other people, it was appropriate to put in as a formal record a purpose other than the true purpose?"

Mr Flavin: "Well, yes. That is what was done, judge, as simple as that."

Mr Flavin said that it was very unlikely that he was the author of the particular wording being discussed.

He said Michael Scholefield of DCC might have prepared the minutes, and that Fergal O'Dwyer, also of DCC, might also have also had an input.

Mr Gallagher said he took it that the true purpose of the movement of the beneficial ownership to a Dutch-resident subsidiary would have been known to the directors.

Mr Flavin said he thought it was transparent that it was.

DCC received advice that the group would avoid paying Irish capital gains tax on any profit it made when it sold its shareholding in Fyffes, as long as exclusive management and control of Lotus Green resided with the company in the Netherlands.

The hearing will resume tomorrow.