Irish Food Processor's subsidiary, Anglo Irish Beef Processors, is still owed 159m by Iraq for a series of huge meat contracts in the late 1980s, and the debt restructuring could see the Irish company receiving new bonds worth 20% of the outstanding sum.

A spokesman for Goodman's holding company, Irish Food Processors, last week declined to make any comment in relation to the bond issue and would not say whether AIBP was receiving a payment under the debt restructuring.

Iraq plans to issue new bonds worth $2.8bn as part of a complex debt restructuring aimed at settling the claims of the country's largest commercial creditors. All of the debts covered by the new bonds, to be issued later this month, relate to contracts in the 1980s before sanctions were imposed on Saddam Hussein's regime.

Creditors speaking for 14bn worth of debts have already agreed to the restructuring deal, under which they will receive bonds with a face value of $200 for every $1,000 that was owed. The bonds, guaranteed by the Iraqi government, will pay 5.8% each year and will mature in 2028.

They are expected to cover 60% of the outstanding commercial claims on Iraq.

The controversial beef contracts with Iraq were the subject of a 100m compensation claim by Goodman against the Irish state after the cancellation of AIBP's export credit insurance in 1989. That claim was dropped in 2003 when the state agreed to abandon its own 5m claim against Goodman.

During court proceedings it emerged that Goodman's AIBP was still owed 159m by Iraq, but that a significant portion of the beef in question came from Uruguay and Brazil rather than Ireland, as had been stated.