need code to prevent pasting merged cells

I have a range of cells that are locked but where cell formatting is enabled. Row and column formatting is disabled. And I want to programatically prevent the user from pasting a merged range (either rows, columns or both) into the protected range.

I'm thinking I would need some king of Worksheet_BeforePaste code in the worksheet. Either that or some means of evaluating the content of the buffer.

Thanks in advance.


Kevin

Correction: The range receiving the paste is not locked. And the worksheet is password-protected.