Aquila Inc. has agreed to settle for $10.5 million a class-action lawsuit that alleged the company should have recommended dumping its stock from employees' retirement funds during Aquila's risky boom years. "It's just more efficient for the shareholders for us to settle than to go through a protracted legal case," Aquila spokesman Al Butkus said Wednesday.

Aquila admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement, Butkus said. The company will record the $10.5 million charge in its second or third quarter, he said.

The proposed settlement was filed Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

The suit was filed in late September 2004 in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City. A former employee sued the Kansas City-based company (NYSE: ILA) and its board of directors for promoting the company's stock as a "conservative" investment for participants in the company's retirement plan.

The class included more than 7,000 current and former employees who put Aquila stock into the company's retirement plan from 1999 to May 5, 2004.

A hearing on the settlement' s final approval has been scheduled on Nov. 13 before U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple.