A printing company in the Independent Newspapers group has claimed before the High Court that the purported termination of its contract to print the Irish Farmers Journal was "contrived" at a time when "secret talks" to have the journal printed by The Irish Times were being finalised.
Terenure Printers Ltd (TPL) is seeking some €4.5 million damages from the Agricultural Trust Ltd (ATL), publisher of the Irish Farmers Journal, arising from the alleged wrongful termination in September 2004 of its contract to print the journal.
The proceedings opened yesterday before Mr Justice Peter Kelly and are listed to last two weeks. The defendant denies the claims and has counterclaimed for damages for an alleged material breach of contract which, it claims, affected its relationship with advertisers and its competitiveness.
Outlining the claim, Mr Paul Gallagher SC, for TPL, agreed with the judge that his client's essential claim was that the purported termination of the printing contract was "contrived" by ATL.
Mr Gallagher said his client was unaware that, while talks were under way in 2004 between TPL and ATL to resolve issues relating to printing the journal, secret negotiations were also going on between ATL and The Irish Times about having it printed by The Irish Times.
When those negotiations with The Irish Times were finalised, ATL had contrived a claim against TPL of a material breach of its contract with the printing company, counsel said.
TPL denied any such breach, and the evidence would be that there was no such breach and any problems had been resolved to the satisfaction of TPL and ATL.
The judge was told that an agreement was reached between TPL and ATL in May 1998, whereby the printing company would print the Irish Farmers Journal for a 10-year period to April 30th, 2008, after which the contract would be reviewed.
Mr Gallagher outlined various provisions of that agreement, including one that the contract could only be terminated on the basis of a material breach of its terms, which breach was not rectified by TPL within 14 days of the breach being notified.
Mr Gallagher said ATL had complained in August 2004 of a failure to provide 20 pages of colour in Section 1 of the Farmers Journal and also made complaints about difficulties in printing and finishing and asked that these be remedied.
There were complaints, but pre-production reports prepared by TPL, and into which ATL had an input, did not bear out the complaints made.
Mr Gallagher and his side contended that these did not constitute a material breach of contract.
