Disney has tentatively agreed to pay $43.25 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that female employees earned less money than their male colleagues for nearly 10 years.

The accord resolves the long-running Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit brought in April 2019 by senior financial analyst LaRonda Rasmussen and senior copyright administrator Karen Moore against their employer, Walt Disney Studios.

A hearing on preliminary approval of the settlement is scheduled Jan. 10 before Judge Elihu Berle.

Disney has agreed to retain an outside labor economist to conduct privileged pay equity analyses over the next three years to identify whether any potentially statistically significant pay differences exist, the plaintiffs' court papers state.

Disney also will work with a psychologist to provide training to Disney's compensation personnel on the best practices for benchmarking jobs to external market data, the suit further states.

The plaintiffs' estimate the average award at $3,000 per individual, or $1,800 net payments based on deductions for attorneys' fees and other costs. The highest net estimated award is approximately $15,000 and the lowest award is $200.

"Put simply, Disney refuses to pay its women employees equal to men doing the same work," according to the suit, which further alleged that sometimes the differences amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.

In their previous court papers, Disney lawyers said their clients "categorically deny" that their female employees were paid less than their male counterparts and said the company would vigorously defend itself against all the plaintiffs' claims.