On December 13, 2006, the U.S. Antitrust authorities announced that Stora Enso North America Corp. (SENA) had been indicted for its alleged anticompetitive conduct in connection with the sale of coated magazine paper in the United States in 2002 and 2003. SENA is the U.S.-based subsidiary of Stora Enso Oyj of Helsinki, Finland, the second largest magazine paper producer in the world.

Stora Enso denies any wrongdoing and will enter a plea of not guilty when it appears before the court at the arraignment to respond to the indictment. The indictment concludes an investigation that began in May 2004. The Group expects the trial to occur in 2007. No Stora Enso employee was charged individually.

According to the Department of Justice, this is the first charge filed as a result of an ongoing investigation into price fixing in the magazine paper industry.

In the indictment, the grand jury charged SENA with conspiring to fix the price at which certain brand name, coated publication papers were sold to customers throughout the United States from approximately August 2002 through June 2003. The magazine papers were primarily used by customers in the production of magazines, news weeklies, and high-volume catalogs, such as Time, Reader’s Digest, and JC Penney.

The U.S. Department Of Justice said SENA is charged with carrying out the conspiracy by meeting and communicating with a competitor regarding the prices for magazine papers in the United States, agreeing during those communications and meetings to increase the prices of magazine papers sold in the United States, and issuing price announcements for magazine papers in accordance with the agreement reached.

Stora Enso North America is based in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., and has sales offices in Connecticut, Georgia, and other states. The conspiracy charge in the indictment, which was handed up in Hartford, was carried out in Connecticut and elsewhere, according to the Justice Department.