for breach of copyright by a US firm with the same name.

Giant Food Inc.

, of the US, had accused the local Giant Foods of stealing its logo.

While the local firm has not admitted stealing the logo, which was identical, it has agreed to settle the action and pay the other party's costs.

The local company's president Mr. George Whitecross said the matter was settled to avoid expensive and protracted legal action.

"The only people who would have got rich by that would have been the lawyers,'' said Mr. Whitecross.

"Rather than go through all of that we thought we would change our logo. It's not as if it could not be changed without much difficulty.'' The problem arose after Mr. Whitecross and his partner Mr. Manuel Mendonca bought the former Friendly Store, in Warwick, last year.

They changed the name of the company to Giant Foods and adopted a logo, comprising a large `G' with the name of the store in the middle, which was identical to that of Giant Food, in the US.

The local firm did not even bother to add an `s' to the name Giant Food. Mr.

Whitecross maintained that this was due to an error on the part of the person who "designed'' the local firm's logo and said he did not consider it worth the effort to add an `s' once the mistake had been spotted.

The local company's lawyer, Sen. Jerome Dill, stressed that the company had admitted nothing in settling the action.

But he added: "We made a payment in respect of costs.''