Airline e-commerce company Datalex said its chairman Pascal Taggart has resigned with immediate effect.

Mr Taggart had previously said at the company's Extraordinary General Meeting in April that he would resign as chairman at the company's forthcoming AGM.

Earlier this year accountancy irregularities were discovered in Datalex's 2018 interim accounts which had the effect of overstating earnings. 

A forecast profit of $16m became an expected loss of up to $4m, before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation.

Datalex shareholders had voted to accept a loan of €6m from businessman Dermot Desmond at its EGM in April. 

"Somebody has got to fall on their sword in these situations, and I am the chairman, so it's me"," Mr Taggart had said at the EGM. 

He added that at the age of 76 he had been planning to step down from the company for some time, and believed that new people coming in would add energy to the company. 

Aidan Brogan then announced his resignation as Datalex's chief executive in May with immediate effect. 

Mr Brogan has been been CEO at the company since September 2012 and first joined it in 1994.

PwC was hired to conduct a review of its finances and it substantiated the claim that the company's finances had been misstated. 

The review identified "significant accounting irregularities", which prompted the company to overhaul its finance function and implement improved controls. 

Datalex said the review had identified significant accounting irregularities as the underlying cause for the group's overstatement of revenues, noting material weaknesses in the internal control environment.

It also disclosed that its accounting process in this area has been largely manual, and dependent on individual judgement, and not subject to internal audit oversight.

The company's chief financial officer Dónal Rooney announced that he was leaving the company in February after just a couple of months in the role. 

Shares in the company were temporarily suspended after it said it was not in a position to meet a regulatory deadline to publish its accounts, as scheduled, on April 30.

Datalex's customers include Aer Lingus, Jet Blue, Swiss, Philippine Airlines, West Air, SAS and Air Malta.