Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Donald Sterling, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Clippers, agreed to pay $2.73 million to settle a U.S. government lawsuit in which he was accused of housing discrimination.

The payment is the largest ever obtained by the government in a discrimination case involving apartment rentals, the Justice Department said today in a statement.

“Housing is a basic human need, and yet decades after passage of the Fair Housing Act far too many still encounter barriers like discrimination,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez said in the statement. “The magnitude of this settlement should send a message to all landlords that we will vigorously pursue violations of the Fair Housing Act.”

The government sued Sterling in August 2006, saying he discriminates against black and Hispanic prospective tenants in buildings he owns in Los Angeles’s Koreatown area. Sterling owns about 119 apartment buildings in Los Angeles County, according to the Justice Department’s statement.

The Sterling Family Trust denied any liability as part of the settlement, Robert Platt, a lawyer representing Sterling, said in an e-mailed statement.

“After three years of litigation, the fair-housing attorneys could not prove a single violation of the Fair Housing Act,” Platt said. “My clients vehemently and unequivocally denied that anyone was discriminated against.”

The insurance companies for the family trust wanted to settle because the cost of continuing the lawsuit exceeded the cost of settling, according to the statement.

The case is U.S. v. Sterling, 06-4885, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 3, 2009 17:18 EST