Marsh & McLennan Companies will pay more than $83.5 millionto settle a class action suit filed by customers who were clientsof the insurance brokerage arm of the firm while it engaged inbid-rigging and steering of insurance contracts.

According to court filings, the settlement, filed in U.S.District Court of New Jersey in Newark before Judge Garrett E.Brown Jr., will award over 200,000 plaintiffs more than $69million. In addition, MMC will pay more than $14.5 million in legalfees to the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs.

The settlement covers the period from August 1994 to September2005. During that time MMC's insurance brokerage firm, Marsh, wasaccused of engaging in bid-rigging, price-fixing and steering ofcommercial insurance contracts in return for kickbacks frominsurers in the form of volume-based contingent commissions.

The brokerage firm settled the case with the New York AttorneyGeneral's Office in early 2005, paying a settlement of $850 millionthat was to go into a fund to be paid to clients harmed by theinsurance brokerage's actions.

In 2004, as the allegations were coming to light, severallawsuits were filed against a number of insurance brokers allegingcollusion and racketeering. The actions were consolidated in 2005in the New Jersey court.

According to the court filings, 218,216 notices were sent out toplaintiff class clients. Judge Brown said there were threeplaintiff objectors to the settlement. He dismissed all threesaying their objections were without merit.

A request for comment from an MMC representative was notimmediately returned.