AWB has also complained about being left in the dark over how the Australian Securities and Investments Commission handles transcripts of compulsory interviews the regulator conducted with former AWB managers and external lawyers.

"ASIC’s attitude reminded me about the old joke about growing mushrooms — and that’s the way we’ve been treated in this whole episode about these transcripts," AWB’s counsel, Charles Scerri, QC, told the Victorian Supreme Court yesterday.

AWB has asked Justice Ross Robson to grant it access to numerous transcripts of ASIC’s examinations of former AWB employees before the regulator hands those documents to lawyers representing AWB’s former chief executive Andrew Lindberg.

Mr Lindberg is the only person so far to face legal action over the wheat exporter’s payments to Iraq between 1999 and 2004.

He is due to face trial in October in a civil penalty action initiated by ASIC, which alleges Mr Lindberg breached his fiduciary duties by allowing the Iraq payments to continue.

AWB has not viewed the ASIC transcripts, although it may through a Federal Court case in Sydney where it is defending a class action initiated by AWB shareholders.

Mr Scerri told Justice Robson that AWB faced a "Catch-22" situation: it cannot identify its claim for privilege in the transcripts because it has not had an opportunity to see the material.

But ASIC’s counsel, Norman O’Bryan SC, told Justice Robson that AWB, which is not a party in the civil penalty action against Lindberg, should not be allowed to intervene in the Lindberg case.

Justice Robson will decide the privilege issue this morning.