NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — A New York judge dismissed charges against the last three alleged participants in a bid-rigging scheme involving employees of Marsh & McLennan Cos.

State Supreme Court Justice James Yates yesterday dropped the charges against former Marsh executives William McBurnie and Thomas Green and former Zurich Financial Services AG executive Geri Mandel at the request of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In court papers, Cuomo cited the "unjustifiably high cost" of prosecuting them in light of the "likely outcomes".

"It's still sinking in," McBurnie, a former senior vice president at Marsh, said in an interview in the hallway of the Manhattan courthouse after the charges were dismissed. "It's been a long road, a difficult road, but it's behind me."

The executives were indicted in 2005 and 2006 as part of a probe of anticompetitive insurance sales practices begun by former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. In February 2008, in the first trial in the case, Yates found former Marsh managing directors William Gilman and Edward McNenney guilty of a single count of restraint of trade after a 10-month trial.

Yates acquitted the executives of 20 other charges, and sentenced them to 16 weekends in jail. Last month, Yates acquitted three other former Marsh executives of bid-rigging and price-fixing charges after an 11-month trial.

The Marsh executives were accused of fixing prices to steer business to insurers that paid hidden fees. From November 1998 to September 2004, Marsh executives falsely represented bids to customers, predetermining winners and soliciting losing bids from other insurers, according to the original indictment. At least five insurance carriers were involved in the scheme, court papers said.

Cuomo took over the case when he became attorney general in 2007. Marsh, based in New York, is the second-largest insurance broker behind Aon Corp.

"It's a good day for Thomas Green," his attorney, Matthew Brissenden, said in an interview after the dismissal. "It's been a long four years." Green was a global broking coordinator at Marsh.

Mark Schamel, attorney for Mandel, a former senior vice-president at Zurich, said: "Geri never committed a crime and she's been vindicated."

Twenty-one people from Marsh, American International Group Inc., Ace Ltd., Zurich and Liberty Mutual Group pleaded guilty since 2004 when the bid-rigging probe began.

Former managing directors Joseph Peiser and Kathleen Drake and former senior vice president Greg Doherty were found not guilty by Yates of scheming to defraud and antitrust under the state's general business law.

Marsh paid $850 million in 2005 to resolve accusations by Spitzer in a civil lawsuit that it rigged bids and took kickbacks from insurers.