An un-named global media organisation has reached a €2.5m (£1.7m) settlement with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) for neglecting to ensure it had up to date licences.

The investigation - which included raids on company premises and the freezing of its assets - was initiated by a criminal complaint made by the BSA on behalf of Adobe, Autodesk, Avid and Microsoft.

Following the settlement, the organisation has agreed to delete all unlicensed software products and buy the right licences for those it wishes to use.

A spokesman for the media group said the problems stemmed from the firm's rapid growth.

"The situation came about because we relied on a single individual to keep us compliant and manage our software assets across multiple locations during a period of significant expansion.

"The management were shocked at the scale of the situation and recognise that by having software management processes and tools in place this could have been avoided."