Rudiger Grube, the chairman of EADS, tried to prevent shareholders mentioning the insider-trading scandal that has rocked the European aerospace and defence group as he won backing yesterday for a streamlined management structure.

With investors gathered in Amsterdam to approve a new 11-strong board, Mr Grube said that executives would refuse to answer questions about allegations of insider dealing in 2005 and 2006.

“This is not the forum for such questions,” he said. “Everyone has the right to be presumed innocent.” He said that the accusations had “nothing to do with the fundamentals of our business and do not reflect the current reality and future prospects of our group”.

However, Mr Grube failed to stem fury over a preliminary report by the French Financial Markets Authority into what it said was “massive” illegal share dealing by 21 present and former executives at EADS and Airbus, its aircraft manufacturing division. They made a total profit of about €90 million by selling shares before production delays to the A380 became public knowledge and wiped 26 per cent off EADS’s stock market value Arnaud Lagardère, the chairman of Lagardère, the media-to-aerospace group that is EADS’s main French industrial investor, bore the brunt of the anger over his company’s move to shed a 7.5 per cent stake two months before the crisis erupted last year.

The French Association of Active Small Shareholders objected to his nomination as a board member at the extraordinary general meeting. “Shareholders simply cannot reappoint someone who is incompetent,” it said.

It was backed by Colette Neuville, chairman of the Association for the Defence of Minority Shareholders, who recalled Mr Lagardère’s denial of insider-trading charges on the grounds that he had been unaware of the production delays. “I would ask the EADS board why they want to extend the mandate of a man who spends his time saying he did not know what went on,” she said.

Mr Lagardère, who describes himself as President Sarkozy’s “brother”, responded angrily to the campaign against him. “ You said you wished that I was not on the board. Well, I intend to stay,” he told small shareholders. “I will stay to defend the interests of my company. I have always played my part in the cleanest, most transparent way. There was no insider trading. We had no access to information that other shareholders didn’t have access to.”

The new board includes Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the Arcelor Mittal steel group, and Sir John Parker, the chairman of National Grid.

Investors backed the plan promoted by Mr Sarkozy to end the dual Franco-German structure in EADS and Airbus, which has widely been seen as a source of friction and hesitation. Mr Lagardère stepped down as joint chairman to leave Mr Grube alone at the head of the group.

Louis Gallois, EADS’s chief executive, said: “The fact we were two CEOs created two camps, one French and one German. Now that’s finished.”

Turbulent times

April 2005: Airbus announces delay to A380

November: EADS executives sell shares

March 2006: EADS executives sell shares for up to €35. According to the AMF, the French stock market regulator, Noël Forgeard, EADS co-president, exercised stock options for a total of €2.5 million

June 13: EADS announces delays to the A380. shares fall 26 per cent

June 16: AMF reveals investigating possible insider trading at EADS

July 2: Mr Forgeard resigns

November 20: Paris prosecutors open an insider trading probe

July 16, 2007: Shareholders at Airbus’s parent company agree to end the dual structure, naming Louis Gallois, above, as EADS’s sole chief executive

October 3: The preliminary AMF report on 20 EADS executives finds “massive insider trading”

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