WASHINGTON – A key Janus Capital Group Inc. subsidiary has agreed to pay $100 million to settle fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Janus Capital Management LLC agreed to disgorge $50 million and pay civil penalties of $50 million to settle the allegations that it entered into undisclosed “market timing” agreements with 12 investment entities.

The SEC alleged that Janus entered into secret agreements allowing the entities to make short-term trades that were essentially forbidden to most investors in the funds involved. The SEC said Janus Capital Management profited from additional advisory fees while potentially diluting the profitability of the funds for most investors.

Janus has neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the settlement.

Janus announced the terms of the settlement in April, and the SEC order released Wednesday makes it official. Janus also agreed in April to make an additional $1.2 million in other settlement-related payments required by Colorado and to reduce its management fees by $125 million over the next five years.

Janus was battered by billions of dollars in investor withdrawals as one of the four fund companies cited in a probe of the industry by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last September.

“I want to thank our fund holders and employees who have remained loyal to Janus during a difficult time,” said Janus’s chairman and chief executive, Steve Scheid, in a statement. “We are focused on delivering strong, consistent performance to our fund holders and putting their interests first and foremost.”

Janus also agreed to undertake cer tain compliance and mutual-fund governance reforms.

According to the SEC, Janus had agreements with 12 market timers for nearly two years, beginning in November 2001. The largest timer, who the SEC does not name, made more than 500 trades in seven funds involving more than $2.5 billion in purchases.

By the summer of 2003, the timer had as much as $263 million invested in Janus funds at any given time. The timer initially invested in the Janus Mercury Fund as a result of a friendship between a former portfolio manager and a principal at the timer’s firm.

Stephen Cutler, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said the agency “will continue to investigate these improper arrangements in an effort to hold all responsible parties accountable.”

[Separately, ING Groep NV, the largest Dutch financial services company, will withdraw about $5 billion from Janus Capital Group Inc. funds this year following a performance review, Bloomberg News reported. Amsterdam-based ING informed Janus Capital it would pull the funds in July, ING spokeswoman Dorothy Hillenius said.

ING’s decision to pull money “probably had to do with Janus’s involvement in complaints of improper trading, which gave ING negative publicity, and lackluster performance,” said an analyst at Amsterdam-based Bank Oyens & van Eeghen, Lukas Daalder.

A Janus spokesman, Neal Jenkins, said the company has turned the performance around of its main American mutual funds, with about three quarters of them placing in the top half of rankings by Lipper Inc. in the year to June 30.The flagship $8.7 billion Janus Twenty Fund has risen 1.4% this year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dropped 2.7%.

“We’re disappointed with ING’s decision because we’ve made tremendous strides on many fronts including our performance and the regulatory settlement,” said Mr. Jenkins, who’s based in London.]