Inquiry at 'end of the road', says Appleby

WATCHDOG'S REACTION:INVESTIGATIONS INTO unlawful insider dealing by DCC and its former chief executive Jim Flavin are at "the end of the road" following publication of the High Court inspector's report, according to Director of Corporate Enforcement Paul Appleby.

No further action was warranted after the inspector, Bill Shipsey SC, determined that DCC and its officers were “broadly compliant” with the Companies Acts, Mr Appleby told an Oireachtas committee yesterday.

“We have pursued this for quite a number of years, we’ve taken it to the highest form of inquiry possible and clearly the inspector has found what he has found and we must both respect and accept that,” he told The Irish Times after giving evidence to the joint committee on enterprise, trade and employment.

Mr Appleby said the inspector had found that DCC directors had followed advice from a “trusted” legal adviser to the company.

“If, as the inspector has found, the directors were quite entitled to do that – even if the legal advice was wrong – there is very little I can do.

“There’s no way that any court would sanction a director for having followed the company’s legal advice. This is at an end, really, at this stage.”

Defending the investigations against claims of a whitewash, he said it was not a black-and-white case. The High Court had not found against DCC on any of the issues that were brought to its attention at the time.

“The results of the investigation must be based on facts and judgments and . . . there is not a cause for action. That’s the basis on which I’ve made my decision. We might as well call it now as call it another time.”

He said he was not surprised by Mr Shipsey’s conclusions: “Sometimes with investigations, the suspicions that may have triggered them are found not to be a cause for action and that is what happened in this instance.”

Earlier, Mr Appleby told TDs at the committee hearing that he had reported other “defects” in DCC – which did not relate to insider trading – to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who had decided they were not prosecutable.

Overall, his officials had taken their investigations “to the limit” and his decision to end them was taken “on the facts” and the conclusions reached by an expert and well-respected commercial lawyer.

The inspector’s report has cost €1.4 million. No determination has been made yet as to who would bear the cost, he also told the committee.

Mr Appleby also said he was happy that investigation by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement’s (ODCE) into Anglo Irish Bank was proceeding satisfactorily and there was no shortage of commitment to get it done quickly.

Pressed by TDs to say when the investigation would be completed, he said there was “several months’ work” left in it.

The inquiry was the longest and most complex undertaken by his office since it was set up and took up one-third of his staff.

The acquisition of potential evidence was a painstaking process but he was getting co-operation from most of those involved.

Mr Appleby, who complained about a lack of staff in 2007, said he now had adequate staff to deal with the workload of the ODCE. The number of employees and the budget had increased by one-third since 2006, he said.