Smurfit-Stone, Jefferson Smurfit's associate company in the US, will pay $350,000 (€444,408) to an alliance of software developers in settlement of piracy claims. The Business Software Alliance, a Washington-based watchdog group, said the claims were related to unlicensed copies of programs installed on computers that belonged to Stone Container Corp before its recent merger with Jefferson Smurfit Corp.

"Smurfit itself has always been careful to ensure that it owned an adequate number of licences to support all of the software installed on its computers," said Mr Jim Hayssen, vice-president of information technology for Smurfit-Stone. When Jefferson Smurfit Corp merged with Stone Container late last year, we became aware of licensing deficiencies at many of its plants and offices spread throughout the country," he said.

The Business Software Alliance has collected about $40 million in fines from US companies illegally pirating software over the past five years.