CONCORD, New Hampshire (Bloomberg) — Three law firms are seeking a record $464 million in legal fees for their work in winning a $3.2 billion securities fraud settlement from Tyco International Ltd. and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

The firms, Grant & Eisenhofer PA, Milberg Weiss LLP, and Shiffrin, Barroway, Topaz & Kessler LLP, plan to ask a New Hampshire federal judge overseeing securities fraud suits against Tyco to approve the amount, which they said in court papers would be the biggest ever in a securities-fraud settlement.

"To secure this historic recovery on behalf of the class in possibly the most complex civil securities case ever prosecuted, plaintiffs' counsel prosecuted this case for over five years on a wholly contingent basis, committing and expending vast resources and incurring a huge amount of expenses — approximately $29 million — with no guarantee of recompense, the lawyers wrote in papers filed with the court on October 22.

In their request, the lawyers for Tyco's shareholders claim the record fee is justified by their "tireless effort" which included 488,468 hours of legal work. A hearing on the request is scheduled to be heard.

The settlement resolves investors' securities-fraud suits claiming that Tyco, based in Pembroke, Bermuda, overstated its income by more than $5 billion under former chief executive Officer L. Dennis Kozlowski.

The requested fee award would pay the plaintiffs' firms an average $352.26 hourly rate for work that included reviewing 83.5 million documents and taking 220 depositions, the lawyers said in their papers. Eleven investors, including four institutional investors, objected to the fee request, the lawyers said.

Milberg Weiss co-founding partner Melvyn Weiss pleaded not guilty last month to charges he secretly paid clients to file securities fraud suits that won more than $251 million in legal fees. Former Milberg Weiss partners David Bershad and Steven Schulman were indicted last year on similar charges and have pleaded guilty.

Tyco earlier this year split into three publicly traded companies, spinning off its health-care and electronics divisions.