Analysis: The first of 10 expert witnesses in the Fyffes/DCC case said DCC chief Jim Flavin had "highly negative" data on Fyffes when selling its state in the group, writes Colm Keena.

The Fyffes/DCC case heard from its first expert witness yesterday.

Prof Daniel Fischel is president of Lexicon, a consulting firm based in Chicago, which has a staff of approximately 150 and is frequently involved in the giving of expert evidence to commercial trials.

Prof Fischel is also professor of law and business at the University of Chicago.

He has given evidence "many times" in major commercial scandals in the US, including in relation to the Enron affair. He has also advised on compensation for victims of the September 11th attacks.

He is a witness for Fyffes and believes the information DCC chief executive Mr Jim Flavin had in February 2000 was price-sensitive.

He has also read two reports by expert witnesses for DCC, who have come to an opposite conclusion to him.

About 10 expert witnesses will give testimony before the case ends. There are still a few witnesses of fact to be heard, but Prof Fischel is being heard because of scheduling issues.

The case before the court centres on two issues: the extent to which Mr Flavin was involved in the sale of Fyffes's shares by DCC in February 2000; and whether the information he possessed at the time was price-sensitive.

Prof Fischel said there were five reasons to believe the information Mr Flavin had was price-sensitive.

The first was that the trading information available to Mr Flavin at the time indicated an historically poor first quarter for Fyffes.

The second and third were that Fyffes was not on track to meet its budget expectations or analysts' forecasts for fiscal year 2000.

Fourth, in the two days after a trading statement was made by Fyffes on March 20th, 2000, a statement that "effectively included the information that Mr Flavin had previously been provided" with, the Fyffes share price dropped almost 25 per cent.

Lastly, when other fruit companies such as Dole, Chiquita and Fresh Del Monte had issued trading statements, their share prices had also been affected.

Prof Fischel said information that had implications for a company's profitability tended to be particularly price-sensitive.

The court heard that Prof SP Kothari, an expert for DCC, is to say that the market had already anticipated that Fyffes was performing badly in late 1999/early 2000 for reasons to do with exchange rates and banana prices, factors that were publicly known.

But Prof Fischel said there was always public information available but that did not mean you knew exactly how a company was faring.

There was surprise at the March 20th trading statement, as could be seen from market reactions and reports at the time.

The fact that other, additional pieces of information were relevant to March 20th did not take away from the fact that, in February 2000, Mr Flavin had knowledge of the negative performance of Fyffes, he said.

A second DCC expert, Prof Richard Taffler, is to say the dotcom mania that existed in February 2000 meant that trading information was not relevant.

Again, Prof Fischel said the events of March 20th did not support that view.

He told Mr Michael Ashe SC, for DCC, that he had no estimate of how the Fyffes share price would have been affected on the days of the February trades if the allegedly price-sensitive information had become publicly available. However, he said an inference could be drawn from what occurred on March 20th.

The US expert may finish his evidence today, after which the court will resume hearing from witnesses of fact.

Mr Carl McCann is due to return to the box and Mr Gerry Scanlan is also due to appear shortly.