WITH ONE bound our hero is free, or so it seems. Yesterday's statement from the board of DCC underpins the position articulated this week by its executive chairman Jim Flavin that he will, and should, continue to lead the company for the foreseeable future. This is despite his having been found by the Supreme Court to have broken the law on insider trading and cost the company's shareholders some €50 million.
His board has based its support for Mr Flavin on selected elements of a half victory in the High Court; choosing to ignore the significance of the points on which the High Court ruled against the company and the reality of the subsequent Supreme Court judgment.
They have brushed over the fundamental significance of the Supreme Court finding that Mr Flavin engaged in insider trading when he dealt in shares in Fyffes while in possession of price sensitive information and that this was against the law. Instead they chose to interpret the judgment of the High Court as supporting their view that what transpired was little more than an unwitting breach of a now repealed company law; a venial rather than a mortal sin.
Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of the board position is that it is attempting to hold itself out as some sort of independent arbiter of the judgments of both the High Court and the Supreme Court.
This is, to say the least, an incongruous position for the losing party to a litigation to try and sustain. Furthermore, the judgments need no parsing. The Supreme Court ruling is crystal clear and any attempt to minimise the significance of the breach of the law that it concluded took place is undermined by the size of the settlement DCC made as a result.
Mr Flavin is primarily answerable to his board which by virtue of its own tortured logic has backed him. The board is answerable to the shareholders, who in the first instance are represented by the Irish Association of Investment Managers (IAIM), the body that speaks for banks and other big institutional investors.
It will become apparent from the actions of IAIM members in the next few days whether they have the will or the inclination to say that they do not think it is appropriate for someone to continue to run one of Ireland's largest companies having been found by the Supreme Court to have been engaged in a €107 million insider trading scandal that cost shareholders €50 million.