A deal on the sale of ceded lands was reached yesterday.

The state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and three of four Native Hawaiian plaintiffs agreed to settle their 15-year-old lawsuit with the state over ceded lands in the wake of the Legislature's passage yesterday of a bill requiring Hawai'i governors to get approval from lawmakers before selling ceded lands.

OHA and the other plaintiffs had sued to block the state from selling portions of ceded lands — 1.2 million acres held in trust by the state — until claims by Native Hawaiians to those lands are resolved.

The measure, Senate Bill 1677, requires a two-thirds vote by both chambers of the Legislature before most ceded lands can be sold.

OHA and three of the four individual plaintiffs reached "an agreement on a set of steps that will resolve all or almost all of the lawsuit filed by OHA and the private plaintiffs in 1994," OHA said in a statement.

Yet to be resolved is the issue of how much OHA should receive from revenues derived from ceded lands. A bill to address this issue failed last Friday.

University of Hawai'i professor Jonathan Osorio, one of the plaintiffs, did not join in the settlement. Osorio could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"If professor Jonathan Osorio chooses to proceed with this case, both OHA and the state believe it likely that his claims will also be dismissed without prejudice," OHA said.

OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona and state Attorney General Mark Bennett said in a joint statement: "There is no question that OHA and the state had significant differences with regard to this lawsuit. This settlement resolves those differences in a way we believe is beneficial to all citizens of Hawai'i. We can now concentrate on working together on matters we all believe are crucially important to Hawai'i, including the Akaka bill. We look forward to doing so."