BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- A Johnson County, Kansas, judge has given preliminary approval to a Sprint Nextel Corp. proposal to pay 57.5 million U.S. dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit claiming it cheated shareholders of billions of dollars when it combined two tracking stocks in early 2004.

    Judge Kevin Moriarty has scheduled a hearing in December to consider granting final clearance. If approved, the payment would amount to 4.4 percent of 1.3 billion dollars, the low end of estimated losses claimed by the plaintiffs.

    Sprint Nextel would pay 10 million dollars, while insurance would cover the remaining 47.5 million dollars. The company continued to deny any wrongdoing, saying it wanted to avoid the costs of ongoing litigation. The settlement would be the company's third in the past month.

    "This settlement resolves a dispute that arose during an earlier period for the company," said company spokesman Matt Sullivan. "We are pleased to put the issue behind us."

    Sprint Nextel earlier agreed to pay 57 million dollars to settle a discrimination lawsuit claiming it targeted older workers during rounds of companywide layoffs and 30 million dollars to settle a suit alleging it and AT&T overcharged customers for payments used to subsidize rural phone service.

    The latest case came about after then-Sprint Corp. decided to combine the two stocks that tracked the fortunes of its wireless and traditional wireline business divisions. Those stocks were divided in 1998 to reflect that the wireless division was just starting to grow and invest in wireless infrastructure while the business overseeing local and long-distance calls generated the bulk of the company's revenue.

    By 2004, with most telecommunications companies selling bundles of wireless and land line services, Sprint officials decided to recombine the stocks, exchanging each of the wireless stock shares for half a share of the wireline stock.

    Shareholders objected, with half a dozen filing lawsuits claiming the company had shortchanged the value of the wireless stock and that company officials had manipulated the wireline business to the detriment of the wireless business.

    (Agencies)