Tokai Bank has reached an undisclosed settlement with the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the industry watchdog representing software manufacturers worldwide, after it was found to be using unlicensed Microsoft software in its European operations.
The European subsidiary of the Japanese bank claimed it had inadvertently breached Microsoft software licences. The bank believed that it was entitled to 'set-off' a deficit in Japanese language versions of the software against a large surplus of English language versions purchased by the bank.
The BSA says that as soon as it became clear that it was not entitled to set-off the licences in this way, the bank took steps to remedy the breaches by purchasing additional Japanese language licences and by amending its software control procedures to ensure that errors would not recur.
Mike Newton, programme manager for BSA in the UK, states: "We are grateful to Tokai Bank Europe for its co-operation in remedying these breaches so promptly. We accept that they were inadvertent errors but nevertheless this settlement illustrates the importance of companies taking software management seriously."