No dispute over facts of Byrne's shares sale

The Philip Byrne insider dealing trial involved no dispute about the facts surrounding the circumstances in which Mr Byrne sold his shares.The task the jury was faced with was of listening to witnesses' accounts of a complicated property deal and then forming an opinion as to whether the information Mr Byrne had at the time he sold his shares was price-sensitive. They had to form this opinion "beyond reasonable doubt".

If they decided Mr Byrne was in possession of price-sensitive information when he sold his shares, then they had to decide whether he did so intending to profit from the price-sensitive information.

The jury found Mr Byrne not guilty.

Mr Byrne was invited by the solicitor and Dunloe chairman Noel Smyth to join Mr Smyth's property company, Aviette Ltd, in late 1996. He joined the company's board on May 1st, 1997.

Prior to his being appointed to the board, Mr Byrne was party to negotiations concerning the merger of Aviette with Phil Monahan's Monarch Properties. A third company, which owned lands at Cherrywood, Co Dublin, was also to merge with the new entity, which would then be absorbed into Dunloe.

The final element of the plan was that Dunloe would raise money on the stock exchange to pay for the development of some of its new property, in particular Cherrywood. Raising money would involve issuing shares at a discount, to encourage uptake.

The deal could have collapsed at any stage along the way, a point made by a number of witnesses.

A Heads Of Agreement in relation to the mergers was signed by Mr Smyth, Mr Monahan and Mr Monahan's business partner, Dominick Glennane, in February 1997.

Mr Smyth told the trial he warned Mr Byrne that his, Mr Smyth's, relationship with Mr Monahan was such that there could be no certainty the deal would go ahead.

In the same month the document was signed, Dunloe issued a statement to the Irish Stock Exchange. Speculation about a deal or deals had led to an increase in its share price.

The company said it was in negotiations in relation to a number of deals but could not say for certain that any of them would go ahead. It also said that if a deal did go ahead, substantial funds would have to be raised - in other words, there would be a shares issue at a discount.

Mr Byrne had a shares portfolio worth €2.3 million (£1.8 million). His stockbroker advised him in April 1997 that he was overexposed in Dunloe shares. A few days later he gave the instruction that one third of his Dunloe shares be sold. They netted him €113,000 (£89,000).

He later told the Garda investigation that the decision to sell was linked to his separation from his wife and his purchase of a new €250,000 residence for himself.

He told the stock exchange investigation that the sale was unfortunate rather than deliberate and that he'd had "no malicious intent".

The sale of the shares, which had been held by Davy Stockbrokers in one of its nominee accounts, was unlikely to have come to light if it had not been revealed by Mr Byrne himself.

He declared the sale in documentation prepared in relation to the Dunloe shares issue that followed the successful conclusion of the Smyth/Monahan negotiations.

Dunloe shares were suspended in June 1997 after the company was formally told that the Smyth/ Monahan negotiations were by then advanced. The negotiations were not concluded until some weeks later.

The reverse takeover of the new entity was then approved by Dunloe shareholders and €31.7 million was raised through a shares issue and placement. Mr Byrne was appointed managing director of Dunloe.

Shares were sold to institutions and existing shareholders at 22.8 cents and 31.7 cents respectively. The market price in June had been 43 cents. When dealing resumed in September it dropped to 29 cents. Mr Byrne subsequently bought new shares in Dunloe.

The Fyffes case, which is currently being investigated by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and is also the subject of a civil action in the High Court, involves a much more significant transaction.

DCC subsidiary Lotus Green owned 10 per cent of fruit distributor Fyffes. Mr Jim Flavin, the DCC chief executive, was a non-executive director of Fyffes.

In its civil action, Fyffes is claiming that DCC and Mr Flavin had detailed financial information concerning Fyffes trading for November and December 1999, and forecasts for December 2000, when the DCC subsidiary sold its stake in Fyffes for an €85 million profit in February 2000.

Mr Flavin has rejected the claim he had price-sensitive information and that he passed any information on to Lotus Green, a Dutch registered subsidiary of DCC that held the Fyffes shareholding. He was not a director of Lotus Green.

Soon after the DCC shares were sold, the price of Fyffes shares fell sharply due primarily to a warning from the company concerning difficult trading conditions.