A High Court case of major importance to the 700-odd members companies of the Irish Brokers Association will begin in the High Court today, when a retrial is held to determine the damages that the IBA must pay to A.E. Dawson & Sons for defamation.Almost a year ago, the Supreme Court court rejected an appeal by the IBA against an earlier High Court judgement in favour of A.E. Dawson and its two directors, Mr Albert Dawson and Mr Dudley Dawson.In his judgement in the Supreme Court, Mr Justice O'Flaherty agreed that the Dawsons had been defamed but found the High Court award of £515,000 excessive and sent it back to the court for retrial on the issue of damages only.Whatever the outcome of today's High Court case on the issue of damages, the success of the Dawson's action in the Supreme Court means that the IBA is already facing a very large legal bill - estimated at between £200,000 and £250,000 by the end of the Supreme Court case. The damages resulting from the retrial beginning today will have to be added to that legal bill. Throughout the High Court and Supreme Court cases, the Dawson brothers had represented themselves in court.The dispute between the Dawsons and the IBA began six years ago when the IBA published a circular to its members which stated that the Dawson's membership ofthe IBA had been terminated.That circular followed a protracted dispute between the parties over whether the Dawsons had operated in accordance with the provisions of the Insurance Act 1989 and over the acceptability of an accountant's report prepared by Mr Albert Dawson.The end result of the dispute was the circular from the IBA to insurance companies with which A.E. Dawson held agencies and the Insurance Intermediary Compliance Bureau which stated that the company's membership of the IBA had been terminated.After a 12-day hearing in 1996, Mr Justice Barron ruled that the case was clearly one of defamation and that the IBA could not claim qualified privilege.