Sept 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has awarded $102

million in legal fees to law firms Quinn Emanuel Urquhart &

Sullivan and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll for their work on a

$580 million settlement for investors who accused major banks of

conspiring to curb competition in the stock lending market.

In an order on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk

Failla in New York called the legal fee amount "fair and

reasonable," amounting to 17.06% of the settlement funds so far

in the case.

The institutional investors that filed the lawsuit in 2017

claimed a group of big banks had conspired to prevent

modernization in the trillion-dollar market for stock lending,

boycotting startup firms.

The investors alleged they had been charged excessive fees

for such lending, which involves the temporary transfer of stock

between investors.

Goldman Sachs ( GS ), JPMorgan ( JPM ), Morgan Stanley ( MS ), UBS, and Credit

Suisse agreed collectively to pay $580 million to settle the

antitrust lawsuit. Bank of America ( BAC ) is the lone remaining

defendant.

Lawyers for the class plaintiffs declined to comment, and

the banks either had no immediate comment or did not immediately

respond to a request for one. The settling banks and Bank of

America ( BAC ) have denied any wrongdoing.

The co-lead attorneys told the judge in May that they had

spent more than 180,000 hours of attorney time over six years

without pay in the case.

The class lawyers said that the case involved 100

depositions and "more than half a billion pages of produced

documents."

The settlements with the banks required new antitrust

compliance measures and other reforms for defendant EquiLend,

which was a joint venture among the banks. The class attorneys

valued the industry reforms at $319 million, settlement papers

show.

Failla in her order said the $102 million was "appropriate

to the specific circumstances of this action, and consistent

with awards in similar cases."

The case is Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System et al v

Bank of America Corp ( BAC ) et al, U.S. District Court, Southern

District of New York, No. 17-cv-06221.

Read more:

Goldman, JPMorgan ( JPM ), Morgan Stanley ( MS ), UBS in $499 mln stock

lending settlement

Credit Suisse entities agree to settle lawsuit in U.S. for

$81 million - court filing