Sprint settles shareholder suit for $131M

Sprint Corp., hung up for years by a troubling merger with Nextel Communications, agreed to pay $131 million to settle a class action investor lawsuit.

The all-cash settlement made public on Monday resolves claims that Sprint, former CEO Gary Forsee and other officials fraudulently inflated the company's stock and bond prices between October 2006 and February 2008. Investors said the defendants falsely touted that Sprint was receiving billions of dollars of benefits from the merger and improving its subscriber base by tightening credit standards.

The settlement ends a court battle that included 8.7 million pages of documents, 65 subpoenas, and 40 depositions and mediations.

Sprint took off Nextel from its name after Tokyo-based SoftBank Corp obtained 80 percent of the Overland Park, Kan.-based wireless carrier.

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