A legal action over the termination of the printing contract for the Irish Farmers Journal with a printing company in the Independent Newspapers group has been settled at the High Court.
Terenure Printers Ltd had claimed the purported termination of its contract to print the Farmers Journal was "contrived" at a time when "secret talks" to have the journal printed by the Irish Times were being finalised. The journal is now being printed at the Irish Times printing plant at Citywest in Dublin.
The Agricultural Trust Ltd, publishers of the journal, denied that it had contrived to terminate the contract.
It claimed it had made several complaints in relation to the printing of the journal, including about printing quality, and that the decision to terminate in September 2004 was served arising from a "material breach" of the printing agreement with Tere-nure Printers.
The case opened on Tuesday before Mr Justice Peter Kelly and was due to last two weeks. However, it was settled yesterday morning, the fourth day of the hearing. The terms of settlement were not disclosed.
Paul Gallagher SC, told the judge the action had been settled and could be struck out with liberty to re-enter for the purpose of enforcing the settlement. The judge said he was glad the sides had been able to reach an accommodation. Michael Brophy, managing director of Terenure Printers, said: "We're happy to have settled the case."
In its claim, Terenure Printers had sought €4.5 million damages from the Agricultural Trust, while it had counterclaimed for damages, alleging material breach of the terms of contract which, it claimed, had affected its relationship with advertisers and its competitiveness.
Much of the case centred on analysis of the quality of copies of the Farmers Journal as printed by Terenure Printers .