A U.S. judge on Tuesday approved a $72 million settlement toresolve shareholder claims that Berkshire Hathaway Inc's General ReCorp engaged in a sham deal that helped inflate AmericanInternational Group Inc's reserves.

Approval of the settlement brings to an end nine years ofshareholder litigation surrounding AIG's accounting practices andbrings the total of approved settlements to more than $1billion.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts, who approved the settlementat a hearing in Manhattan, said the accord was a "long time coming"and would close out the AIG litigation before her.

"I'm sorry to see it end, but not that sorry," she said.

In April, Batts approved a related $115 million settlement withformer AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, three other executives andtwo of Greenberg's companies.

Before that she signed off on a $725 million settlement withAIGand a $97.5 million accord with accounting firmPricewaterhouseCoopers.

Batts initially in 2010 declined to preliminarily approve theGen Re settlement, instead dismissing claims against the company,but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Yorkreversed herin August 2012.

The lawsuit, led by two Ohio state pension funds, alleged thatAIG and Gen Re violated federal securities laws through a $500million reinsurance transaction in 2000 that boosted AIG's lossreserves and artificially increased its share price.

The events took place years before AIG received $182 billion intaxpayer bailouts during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.

In making the settlement, Gen Re did not admit liability orwrongdoing. Representatives for the company did not immediatelyrespond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The alleged sham transaction was at the center of a criminalcase against four former Gen Re executives and one AIG executivewho were convicted in 2008 on fraud charges.

A federal appeals court reversed their convictions in 2011. Thefive subsequently admitted to conducting the fraudulent reinsurancetransaction as part of a deferred prosecution agreement in June2012.

The executives were former Gen Re Chief Executive RonaldFerguson, Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Monrad, Senior VicePresident Christopher Garand and Assistant General CounselRobertGraham, as well as former AIG Vice President Christian Milton.

In 2010, Gen Re agreed to pay $92.2 million to settle U.S.government claims that it helped AIG manipulate its financialstatements.

AIG itself meanwhile paid $1.6 billion to resolve variousregulatory investigations of accounting fraud.

Greenberg and former AIG Chief Financial Officer Howard Smithpaid $16.5 million to resolve related claims by the SEC. A relatedcivil fraud lawsuit against the two men being pursued by New YorkAttorney General Eric Schneiderman remains pending.

The Gen Re settlement approved Tuesday covers claims by AIGshareholders who bought stock from October 1999 to April 2005, aswell as people who held stock of HSB Group Inc at the timeAIGbought it in 2000. (AIG sold HSB in 2009 to Munich ReinsuranceCo.)

Batts also approved $6.5 million in fees for plaintiffs' lawyersled by the law firms Labaton Sucharow and Hahn Loeser & Parks,below their initial request for $9.47 million, as well as $525,000in expenses.

The case is In re American International Group Inc SecuritiesLitigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No.04-08141.