TOKYO -- The Japanese government said on Friday it would accept a court-brokered settlement of lawsuits filed against it by victims of a fatal brain-wasting illness, bringing to an end a five-year legal battle, Reuters reported.

It had been alleged that the victims contracted brain-wasting creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after receiving transplants of dura mater -- membrane that protects the brain and spinal cord -- supplied by a German medical firm, B. Braun Melsungen Ag.

Courts in Tokyo and Otsu, in central Japan, said in November that B. Braun and the government, which approved the import of the membrane, were responsible for the CJD cases.

B. Braun said on Wednesday it would accept the settlement plan, which the plaintiffs have already agreed to.

The courts said the Health Ministry had ignored a U.S. report in 1987 on the first case of CJD contracted from transplanted human dura mater, and that B. Braun could have known as early as 1978 that the membrane could transmit the disease.

The government banned the use of the membrane in 1997.

The two courts recommended last week that 20 plaintiffs be paid a settlement totaling 1.2 billion yen ($9 million).

Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi said on Friday that it was an obligation for the government to accept the settlement.

"It is an obligation for us to seek an early settlement to compensate for the sufferings of patients and victims who died from the disease," Sakaguchi told a news conference.

While CJD is similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, the CJD cases in question are different from a variant of the disease called VCJD, thought to be caused by eating beef from infected cattle.

There is no known cure for CJD, and it usually results in death in one or two years. ($1=133.26 yen)