Under the agreement, ex-CEO Cees van der Hoeven will also drop his counterclaim of more than 4.5 million euros ($6.4 million) in payments he said Ahold owed him, and not admit any liability, Ahold said in a statement.

The settlement was announced more than four years after Ahold -- known for operating grocery stores around the world, including the Stop & Shop and Giant chains in the United States -- went to the brink of bankruptcy in February 2003.

Van der Hoeven and Chief Financial Officer Michiel Meurs resigned then, saying the company's earnings reports from 1999-2002 were not reliable.

Ahold shares lost two-thirds of their value overnight and it eventually emerged the company had overstated earnings by more than 1 billion euros in 1999-2002.

Meurs also struck a settlement announced Friday, agreeing to pay the company 600,000 euros ($850,000) and drop payment claims of more than 2 million euros ($2.8 million), Ahold said.

In 2006, the executives were fined by a Dutch court and given nine-month suspended sentences in a criminal case, a decision under appeal by both sides.

They reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in which they admitted no guilt but accepted a lifetime ban from holding office in a publicly traded company.

The SEC said the case was "deplorable," but did not undertake a criminal prosecution of the men to avoid double-jeopardy issues in the Dutch case.

The Ahold affair was multifaceted, but the worst part of the scandal involved the exaggeration of sales at its U.S. Foodservice subsidiary. The SEC brought charges against more than 30 people for falsifying records.