THE executive vice president and chief operating officer of Jefferson Smurfit Corporation, Mr Eric Priestley, has resigned because of disagreements with chief executive Mr Richard Graham over his roles and responsibilities.

Fifty four year old Mr Priestley joined JS Corp in August 1996. The surprise announcement yesterday from JS Corp, which is the 46.5 per cent owned associate of the Jefferson Smurfit Group, said the resignation was "effective immediately".

A spokesman at the company's St Louis headquarters declined to elaborate on the reason given for the resignation. But he insisted that it had no connection with the performance of the company. Asked if there was any litigation pending between the parties he said "there is no question of that, it was an amicable parting".

Neither Mr Priestley or Mr Graham were available for comment. JS Corp held its annual general meeting in St Louis yesterday. Mr Graham is to take over Mr Priestley's duties. The company recently reported worse than expected first quarter results with a loss of six cents per share from a previous earnings of 4.8 cents per share. It blamed "negative pricing trends in corrugated containers" for the slump.

Mr Priestley joined JS Corp from the US division of the British packaging group Rexam where he was president and chief executive. The announcement of his appointment in June 1996 came at the same time as the announcement that Mr Graham would become chief executive officer from the end of 1996 on the retirement of Mr James Terrill.

The Jefferson Smurfit Group has announced that board member Dr Tom Reynolds will retire after the group annual general meeting on June 11th. Dr Reynolds, who became a nonexecutive director of the group in 1989, was a director of the Chicago based packaging company Time Industries when Smurfit took a stake in that company in 1974.

A lawyer, Dr Reynolds was vice chairman of the board of Jefferson Smurfit Corporation in the US between 1983 and 1989.