Former star technology banker Frank Quattrone entered a deferred-prosecution agreement with the government Tuesday, avoiding a third trial on obstruction-of-justice charges and paving the way for him to return to the financial-services industry.

At a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Mr. Quattrone, the one-time head of Credit Suisse First Boston’s technology group, officially entered the pact in which all charges against him will be dropped as long as he doesn’t violate state or federal laws for a year’s time. The deal was approved by U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels.

In a somewhat unusual move, Mr. Quattrone, one of the banking stars of the go-go Internet boom of the late 1990s, wasn’t required to admit wrongdoing as part of the agreement and wasn’t required to pay a fine in the matter.”I am very pleased that the case will be concluded and I look forward to the formal dismissal of all charges,” Mr. Quattrone, 50 years old, said outside the courthouse afterwards.

Mr. Quattrone, who made $120 million at the height of the dot-com boom in 2000 arranging deals for high-tech companies, said he plans to resume his “business career,” but didn’t give any details about what he plans to do.

Former colleagues of Mr. Quattrone, who declined to be named, said he would have no trouble attracting some of them if he decided to open his own private equity or banking firm. It is unlikely, however, that he would be welcome or want to return to a large Wall Street firm, they said.

Prosecutors had accused Mr. Quattrone of thwarting federal probes into how CSFB allocated hot initial public offerings by endorsing a subordinate’s email message in December 2000 to “clean up” files.

Mr. Quattrone’s first trial on the charges ended in a deadlocked jury in October 2003. He was convicted by another jury in May 2004 and sentenced to 18 months in prison, but that conviction was thrown out earlier this year.

Since Mr. Quattrone was originally charged in April 2003, three different men — James B. Comey, David N. Kelley and Michael J. Garcia — have served as U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, and the two prosecutors who oversaw Mr. Quattrone’s first two trials — Steven R. Peikin and David B. Anders — have left the U.S.Attorney’s office.

“A deferred prosecution of the case against Frank Quattrone is an appropriate resolution of the case in light of all of the facts and circumstances and the posture of the case at this time,” the U.S. Attorney, Mr. Garcia, said in a statement.

Roman E. Darmer, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said the decision to enter a deferred prosecution agreement with Mr. Quattrone reflects a “serious reconsideration” of the quality of the evidence in the case and the likely rulings from Judge Daniels, who was assigned to the trial in May.

“This deferred prosecution agreement in part reflects the perhaps overly enthusiastic charging decisions made in the immediate wake of Enron, WorldCom and other financial scandals,” said Mr. Darmer, a partner at Howrey LLP in Irvine, Calif.

George A. Stamboulidis, a former federal prosecutor in Long Island, said turnover in the U.S. Attorney’s office also may have been a contributing factor in the decision not to try Quattrone a third time.

“This U.S. Attorney may not have felt personally tied to a prosecution he didn’t initiate,” said Mr. Stamboulidis, nationwide head of the white collar defense and corporate investigations practice at Baker & Hostetler LLP in New York.

While many defense attorneys viewed the decision to defer prosecution as a setback for the government, others said the prosecutors acted responsibly. “The government hasn’t rolled over here,” said Thomas Curran, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and now a defense lawyer with Ganfer & Shore LLP. “The case was proper and the government achieved significant deterrence when it comes to preserving documents.”

The Justice Department has scored a number of white-collar convictions in the past few years, including the convictions of former WorldCom Inc. Chief Executive Bernard J. Ebbers, Adelphia Communications Corp. (ADELQ) founder John Rigas and former Enron Corp.(ENE) top executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. However, federal prosecutors have suffered a number of setbacks recently.

In June a federal judge ruled that prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan violated the constitutional rights of 16 former partners at KPMG LLP accused of tax fraud by pressuring the firm to cut off payment of their legal fees — finding the government “let its zeal get in the way of its judgment.”

For Mr. Quattrone, the willingness of prosecutors to enter a deferred prosecution agreement is the latest in a string of recent legal victories for the former banker. In March, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Mr. Quattrone’s conviction and remanded the case to the district court, citing improper jury instructions. The appellate court also ordered the case be assigned to another judge.

Mr. Quattrone’s lawyers had argued that U.S. District Judge Richard Owen, who presided at the first two trials, was no longer impartial. The appeals court didn’t agree but noted at the time that Judge Owen had endured two full trials in the case and “the contentions of the parties in this difficult and complex matter have taken a toll on all involved.”

Later that month, the Securities and Exchange Commission overturned the National Association of Securities Dealers’ lifetime ban of Mr. Quattrone, saying the regulator misapplied its own rules in instituting the ban. The NASD banned Mr. Quattrone after accusing him of not cooperating in its probe into “spinning” of hot IPOs.

In June, the NASD withdrew its charges against Mr. Quattrone in connection with the investigation, which also probed research analyst conflicts on Wall Street. Spinning is a practice where shares in IPOs are allocated to corporate executives to win their investment-banking business.