The chairman of the OLAF supervisory board, Christiaan Timmermans, has resigned over alleged breach of procedure in the office's handling of the John Dalli case, according to reports in Germany and the Netherlands.

It is being claimed that Timmermans failed to properly inform the board about the details of Dalli's alleged misconduct before handing the information to the Maltese authorities. Mr Timmermans resigned two days ago.

One of the members of the board is a Maltese, Rita Schembri Director-General of the Internal Audit and Investigations Department at the Office of the Prime Minister in Malta.

The issue is not thought to be related directly to the actual content of the report. Mr Timmermans remains a member of the board.

The board oversees the work of OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office. OLAF investigated the trading in influence allegations involving John Dalli and Sliema businessman Silvio Zammit, causing the former's resignation from the European Commission a week ago.

During a press conference in Brussels this afternoon, Mr Dalli invited the journalists to investigate whether the supervisory board approved of the way OLAF had handled the case.

Frankfurter Allgemeine reports that there was criticism of the office's handling of the case, particularly the way it was handed to EU Commission President Jose' Manuel Barroso without having been adequately discussed by the board.