BOSTON – Harvard University has finalized a settlement with a Maine mutual funds company that claimed it was defrauded by Harvard employees advising the Russian government on privatization.

Forum Financial Group LLC and Harvard filed a document in U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine, indicating that Forum’s lawsuit against Harvard was dismissed “with prejudice” – meaning Forum and its owner, John Keffer, cannot sue Harvard again for the alleged fraud.

“The case was settled on terms that are satisfactory to Mr. Keffer and Forum Financial,” Forum attorney Stephen Delinsky said. He would not discuss settlement terms.

The document made no mention of a settlement or its terms, but an October court filing signed by a magistrate judge said “all parties have reached agreement on a settlement of all claims raised in this action.”

“We are pleased that the case has been dismissed with prejudice, and that the litigation is over,” Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn said. He said the university could not comment further on the case.

Forum sued Harvard and two men, Jonathan R. Hay and Andrei N. Shleifer, who ran the U.S.-sponsored Harvard Institute of International Development to help post-Cold War Russia make the transition from Communism to capitalism.

The lawsuit claims that based on Hay and Shleifer’s advice, Forum decided in

1996 to provide startup capital for a business called the First Russian Specialized Depository, the nation’s first mutual fund.

Forum claims that Hay and Shleifer helped Forum secure rights to the fund, and then reneged on a promise to give Forum 49 percent control. The company claimed it was owed up to $4.4 million in compensation, as well as punitive damages, as a result of the alleged fraud.

In court filings, Harvard denied any wrongdoing on the part of the institute, Hay and Shleifer.

In a separate but related case, the federal government sued Harvard, Shleifer, and Hay in U.S. District Court in Boston, asking that a judge order them to repay the government $102 million. That case is pending.

Shleifer and Hay were removed from the Russia program in 1997. The institute was disbanded two years ago. Shleifer is still a tenured economics professor at Harvard. Hay, also an economics professor, has been dismissed.