Rattner settles with Cuomo for $10 million

(Reuters) - Former Obama administration auto industry czar Steven Rattner has agreed to pay $10 million to resolve two lawsuits by New York's attorney general related to alleged kickbacks involving the state's pension fund.

Rattner also agreed to be banned from appearing in any capacity before any public pension fund in New York for five years.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the settlement, which ends two lawsuits by his office. These had sought to recover at least $26 million from Rattner and permanently bar him from the securities industry in New York.

Rattner is the last major figure to resolve allegations by Cuomo in the attorney general's long-running investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the roughly $130 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund.

Cuomo said he has won eight guilty pleas in the probe, including from former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, and more than $170 million of settlement payments.

The Rattner settlement "resolves the last major action of our multi-year investigation," Cuomo said in a statement. "We have been able to help restore and protect the integrity of the state pension fund."

In a statement released by Cuomo, Rattner said he was pleased to settle, and that the accord "allows me to put this matter behind me. I apologize if during the course of this process there is anything I did that may have made reaching this agreement more difficult."

Cuomo and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had accused Rattner of entering quid pro quo arrangements with the pension fund to win $150 million of business in 2005 and 2006 for Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm he co-founded and worked for at the time. He no longer works there.

Rattner entered a civil settlement last month with the SEC, agreeing to pay $6.2 million and accept a two-year ban from working with an investment adviser or broker-dealer.

Quadrangle, Rattner and Rattner's lawyer were not immediately available for comment on Thursday.

Cuomo will become New York's governor on January 1.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Nadia Damouni, editing by Dave Zimmerman)