30th Jul 2007 18:04
DCC PLC30 July 2007 Further Announcement re Supreme Court Judgment Following the Stock Exchange announcement issued by DCC plc ("DCC") on Fridaylast at 6:30pm, DCC wishes to give further detail in relation to the Board'sfull confidence in and unanimous support for Jim Flavin as Executive Chairman of DCC. At its meeting on Friday last the Board of DCC carefully considered, in MrFlavin's absence, whether the decision of the Supreme Court had any implicationsfor Mr Flavin's position. In reaching its conclusion, the Board was cognisant ofthe fact that the Supreme Court decision to overturn the High Court's judgmentdid not imply that Mr Flavin had used price sensitive information in the sharesales. In its judgment the Supreme Court quoted what the High Court judgmentsaid on this matter and set out below is an extract from the quote: "In my view, in this case, the evidence is not open to the interpretation that Mr. Flavin used the information contained in the November and December Trading Reports which is alleged to have been confidential and price-sensitive, the negative information in relation to Fyffes' trading and earnings performance in the first quarter of financial year 2000, so as to enable the DCC Group to exit from Fyffes in manner which would avoid any share price impact which would ensue from the disclosure of that information. In my view, on the evidence, it is clear that what motivated Mr. Flavin in his involvement in the Share Sales and what motivated the almost total exit of the DCC Group from Fyffes in February, 2000 was the opportunity to make a substantial profit because of the increase of the share price on the back of wof.com. The plaintiff has not established any evidential nexus between the profit which the Share Sales generated for the DCC Group and the use by Mr. Flavin, or the use by any of the boards of the corporate defendants, of the confidential information contained in the November and December Trading Reports. On any view of the evidence, that information simply had no bearing on the Share Sales." The Supreme Court judgment also stated that "The High Court concluded that Fyffes had failed to establish a breach of fiduciary duty on the part of Mr Flavin..." No appeal was made against these strong findings of the High Court and theSupreme Court judgment did not interfere with them. These findings of the HighCourt stand. Three independent non-executive directors, Michael Buckley, Maurice Keane andBernard Somers, consulted earlier this year with major shareholders in DCC andwith the Irish Association of Investment Managers in relation to the plannedappointment of Jim Flavin as Executive Chairman, which the Board unanimouslybelieved was in the best interests of shareholders. His appointment to thatposition, with effect from 1 July 2007, was given widespread shareholder supportas evidenced by the fact that Mr Flavin received a 99.8% vote in favour of hisre-election as Executive Chairman at the Annual General Meeting on 20 July 2007. The Board is strongly of the view that the continuation of Mr Flavin asExecutive Chairman is in shareholders' best interests for the reasons recentlydiscussed with major shareholders and with the Irish Association of InvestmentManagers. For Reference: Jim MiltonMurray ConsultantsTel: +353 1 498 0300 +353 86 255 8400 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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