NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Two former Sunbeam Corp. executives, including former CEO Al Dunlap, have agreed to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission a total of $700,000 to settle charges of improper accounting, the SEC said Wednesday.

Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Dunlap agreed to pay $500,000, and former chief financial officer Russell Kersh agreed to pay $200,000 to settle an SEC civil lawsuit that accused them of filing false and misleading financial reports for Sunbeam between 1996 and 1998.

Dunlap and Kersh, who both have previously denied any wrongdoing at Sunbeam, also agreed to be permanently barred from serving as officers or directors of any public company.

"This agreement... will allow [Dunlap] to pursue his retirement and, therefore, is a welcome outcome," Dunlap's attorney, Frank Razzano, said in a statement.

Kersh's attorney, Jeffrey Tew, said he was prohibited from commenting on the merits of the case, but he called attention to an SEC note that neither Kersh nor Dunlap had sold any Sunbeam stock nor accepted any performance bonuses during the period in question.

"That significantly differentiates [Kersh] from the other executives we've been reading about in the news," Tew said.

Sunbeam fired Dunlap, known as "Chainsaw Al" for his brutal cost-cutting there and at Scott Paper Co., in June 1998, accusing him of fraudulently inflating profits. He has been in retirement in Boca Raton, Fla., ever since.

Sunbeam, whose products include Sunbeam appliances and Coleman camping equipment, restated its earnings five months later and filed for bankruptcy court protection in February 2001.

The SEC sued Dunlap, Kersh and three other former Sunbeam executives in May 2001, charging them with inflating Sunbeam's reported earnings by more than $60 million.

The SEC claimed that Dunlap and Kersh led a scheme in which several fraudulent techniques were used to falsely improve the appearance of Sunbeam's finances, in an attempt to sell the company at an inflated price.

The other executives named in the SEC suit were former controller Robert Gluck and vice presidents Donald R. Uzzi and Lee B. Griffith.

Former Arthur Andersen partner Phillip Harlow, who served as Sunbeam's outside accountant, was also named in the suit. Andersen was convicted in June of obstructing the federal government's investigation into the accounting of Enron Corp. The conviction and subsequent penalties effectively finished Andersen as an auditing firm.

All the other defendants have previously denied any wrongdoing. The SEC said its suit against remaining defendants continues, with a trial scheduled for next January.

In August, Dunlap paid $15 million and Kersh paid $250,000 to settle a related class-action suit.