Current Account has no doubt that Jim Flavin would never wish misfortune on any of his corporate peers, but the DCC chief executive must still be mightily relieved that recent events at Elan and AIB have taken the spotlight off the insider-dealing allegations from Fyffes, and more recently the follow-on actions taken by Hibernian Investment Managers and Eagle Star.

DCC has claimed that neither Hibernian nor Eagle Star has actually alleged insider trading as their affidavits state that "if the facts alleged in the said Fyffes statement of claim are true" then they are entitled to claim compensation.

But with the insider-trading action unlikely to see the inside of a courtroom before the second half of 2003, Fyffes and DCC are going to have to live with the fact that this court case is going to hang over them for a long time.

Both DCC and Fyffes may do wonderful things on the corporate front over the next 18 months but the spectre of a €85 million (£66.9 million) claim will mean that many investors will take little notice.

Hibernian and Eagle Star might be the only fund managers to stick their heads above the parapet and sue DCC, but the two institutions are in the unique position of suing a company in which they are investors. How long they remain in that position remains to be seen.

For its part, Eagle Star was very quick off the blocks to dismiss suggestions that it made a €5 million loss on the 2.5 million Fyffes shares it bought from DCC and said that most of the shares had actually been sold at a profit before the Fyffes profit warning in March sent the shares plunging.

On the basis of this statement, it seems that Eagle Star's loss on the Fyffes shares was pretty small, while Hibernian's loss on the 300,000 shares it bought would be negligible in the context of the funds it has under management. So, if the losses are so small, why are Eagle Star and Hibernian suing DCC and Jim Flavin and why have none of the British institutions who bought some of the shares also got involved?

The conventional wisdom in the market is that the British institutions have simply written off the investment and probably don't want to be reminded that they ended up buying a pup when they paid either €3.20, €3.60 or €3.90 to DCC for the Fyffes shares.

Hibernian and Eagle Star are probably covering themselves against any possible action from their own policyholders and investors if they hadn't taken the action.