The tangled tale of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and defective DieHard batteries may finally be coming to a close.

The Hoffman Estates-based retailer said Thursday it has agreed to pay the federal government $63 million as part of a civil settlement with the U.S. attorney in southern Illinois, who has been investigating Sears' advertising practices regarding batteries for more than two years.

The one-time charge will reduce Sears' fourth-quarter earnings by 12 cents per share. In October, Sears said it expected to earn about $1.91 per share before non-recurring charges.

Sears Chief Executive Alan Lacy said he decided that closing this chapter in Sears' history was "now in the best interests of all of our constituents."

While not admitting it sold used batteries as new, Sears did acknowledge in a statement that some DieHard batteries manufactured for it by Exide Corp. in the mid-1990s did not meet the performance standards advertised. Sears routinely advertised its batteries as being the "longest-lasting."

Sears said it was duped by Reading, Pa.-based Exide, which supplied false test data showing that performance problems with some batteries had been corrected.

This is actually the second time that Sears has paid money to settle allegations relating to its batteries. In 1997, the Florida attorney general began investigating claims that Sears was selling used batteries as new. The retailer denied doing so, but two years later agreed to pay $985,000 to bring the investigation to a close. No charges were ever filed, and the payment was intended to cover Florida's costs related to the investigation.

Lawsuits filed in 1999 shed some light on how Sears got into such a mess with one of its most-respected brand names.

In Cook County Circuit Court, Sears sued former employee Gary Marks of Lake Zurich, charging that he had accepted bribes to steer the DieHard contract to Exide from Johnson Controls Inc., the original manufacturer of DieHard, a brand created by Sears 35 years ago.

Sears switched its contract to Exide in 1994, a year after Marks became the buyer.

Sears also sued Exide. Exide countersued Sears, saying the lawsuit was a smokescreen to divert attention from a $15 million debt Sears owed Exide. Later, Johnson Controls got into the act, suing Exide and three of its former officers, alleging commercial bribery.

Sears' suits were based on affidavits filed in the Florida case, in which a former Exide sales executive said the company had paid a former Sears buyer $20,000 in cash.

Earlier this year, Exide pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with defective batteries it manufactured and sold to Sears under the 1994 contract. As part of a plea deal with Illinois prosecutors, it also agreed to pay $27.5 million over five years. That was in addition to nearly $2.8 million paid by Exide to settle allegations in Florida and more than $10 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit.

Marks, the Sears buyer, and Joseph Calio, Exide's vice president of marketing, have pleaded guilty to wire fraud and are awaiting sentencing.

Sears and Exide have agreed to settle their suits against each other, but financial terms of the deal are being kept confidential, said Sears spokeswoman Jan Drummond. Sears' suit against Marks is still pending.

Sears ended its relationship with Exide in 1999 and switched its battery business back to Johnson Controls.