Victorian print house A.C.M Printing & Publishing - trading as Drouin Commercial Printers - has gone into administration after 50 years following a legal dispute with a major client over the ownership of software.
The Australian owned and operated business - formerly trading as DCP Multimedia and DCP Group (Drouin Commercial Printers), and based at Drouin in West Gippsland, 90 kms east of Melbourne - called in administrators from RSM Australia Partners on Monday 10 April.
ACM director Colin Ferguson, a 40-year printing industry veteran, says that as the industry continued to contract in recent years, the company’s focus shifted from printing to software development.
“We’ve become more of a software company and we’ve spent the past 13 years making and supplying software and updates to one of the major agricultural cooperatives in the country,” says Ferguson. “Unfortunately, when the cooperative’s management changed recently, the new management decided that they owned the software.
“Since then, we’ve been locked in a legal dispute over intellectual property rights worth a million dollars. But we just don’t have the funds to fight such a big company.”
Ferguson says ACM does not have a lot of creditors but he’s decided to shut the doors of the business and go into administration as the legal dispute plays out.
The company’s printing business made up less than 20 percent of total revenue in recent times.
“We have a Heidelberg Speedmaster and that does about 80 percent of our printing work, which includes a lot of booklets, brochures, flyers, posters, dockets and NCR Invoice books," says Ferguson.
He’s not sure how the legal situation will be resolved.
“It will play out as it plays out. Legally, they’re just too strong. It’s never good when big companies squash little ones.”
The first meeting of creditors will be held at the RSM Australia Partners offices in Collins St, Melbourne on 24 April.