A judge granted final approval Wednesday to Merrill Lynch & Co.'s $125 million settlement of 20 consolidated class actions accusing the prominent bank of misleading investors in their reports on Internet companies. Judge John F. Keenan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the plaintiffs class certification and gave his final assent to the settlement, which with interest will come to over $133 million. As of mid-July, the plaintiffs said, over 80,000 claims for class membership had been filed. The plaintiffs had initially requested damages totaling between $1.75 billion and $4.1 billion, according to Keenan. Keenan also awarded the lead counsel, comprising eight firms, roughly $32 million, or 24% of the settlement total. He further assessed roughly $1.4 million against the defendants for additional costs. The settlement total is reasonable, providing a sum between 3% and 7% of the requested damages in exchange for the avoidance of a risky trial, Keenan ruled. He noted that over 1.8 million claim packets were mailed to potential class members over the previous months. The 20 settled class actions, each relating to a different security, correspond to 20 Internet companies in which plaintiffs say they invested based on Merrill Lynch's misleading reports. These companies included Etoys Inc. and Aether Systems Inc., according to court documents. The agreement stems from a turbulent time on Wall Street when hundreds of lawsuits were brought against investment banks and brokerages, alleging that some analysts were falsely optimistic about Internet company stocks. Notorious former Merrill Lynch technology analyst Henry Blodgett, who was eventually banned from the securities industry, took much of the heat from angry investors when the dot com bubble burst.