PricewaterhouseCoopers has agreed to pay $28.8 million to two plaintiffs, America High Income Trust and State Street Research Income Trust, according to court documents. The two companies were major bond holders of Safety-Kleen and claimed that PricewaterhouseCoopers turned a blind eye toward questionable accounting within the company.

The remaining $19.2 million of the settlement will be paid to participants in a class-action lawsuit against the accounting firm, the court documents said. Earlier reports of a settlement with PricewaterhouseCoopers only listed the class-action portion of the payment.

PricewaterhouseCoopers did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement.

The settlement, which was filed March 15, puts an end to all claims against PricewaterhouseCoopers for its role in accounting problems that brought down its client, Safety-Kleen.

Two other lawsuits against Safety-Kleen and its accounting firm were settled for $30 million in February 2004.

Safety-Kleen was based in Columbia until it moved to Plano, Texas, in 2002 in the wake of the trouble that sank its stock and eventually landed the company in bankruptcy court. The company laid off nearly 600 people when it moved.

Three of the company's top officials were suspended in the scandal, and several of its directors were accused of U.S. securities fraud. A civil trial for five of Safety-Kleen's former directors is in its third week in U.S. District Court in Columbia. The trial is expected to last two months, said U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson.

Safety-Kleen is a hazardous waste disposal company. It was bought by Laidlaw Environmental Services for $1.8 billion in 1998. However, the company has lost millions since Laidlaw bought it, and creditors have filed about $1.6 billion in claims against Safety-Kleen.